Lewis Perdue

Lewis Perdue
Perdue in 2009
Born	(1949-05-01) May 1, 1949 Greenwood, Mississippi, U.S.
Occupation	Author
Education	Cornell University
Spouse	Megan Perdue
Children	2

Lewis Perdue (born May 1, 1949) is the author of 20 published books including Daughter of God, and The Da Vinci Legacy. Perdue was sued by Random House in 2003 when he charged that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code plagiarized those two books. Random House won the lawsuit but lost their demand to have Perdue pay their legal fees.

Life

Perdue was born in the Mississippi Delta in 1949. He was expelled from the University of Mississippi in 1967 for leading a civil rights march. He graduated from Corning Community College in 1970 with an associate degree, before studying physics and biology at Cornell University, graduating with a bachelor's degree and honors in 1972. While at Cornell, he worked as a full-time reporter for The Ithaca Journal.

Perdue currently lives in Sonoma, California, with his wife, Megan, and two children.

Plagiarism case

On April 11, 2005, novelist Lewis Perdue sued Brown and his publisher Random House for plagiarizing his novels The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (1999), claiming "there are far too many parallels between my books and The Da Vinci Code for it to be an accident." On August 4, 2005, District Judge George B. Daniels granted a motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit, ruling that "a reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God. Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalized or otherwise unprotectable ideas." He affirmed that The Da Vinci Code does not infringe upon copyrights held by Perdue.

Works

Fiction

• The Delphi Betrayal (1981; reissued 2022 by Brash Books}
• Queen's Gate Reckoning (1982; reissued 2022 by Brash Books}
• The Da Vinci Legacy (1983; reissued 2022 by Brash Books}
• The Tesla Bequest (1984; reissued 2022 by Brash Books}
• The Linz Testament (1985)
• Zaibatsu (1988)
• Daughter of God (1999)
• Slatewiper (2003)
• Perfect Killer (2005)
• Die By Wire (2011)

As Ian Ludlow, co-author with Lee Goldberg

• .357: Vigilante (1985; republished as Judgment in 2011)
• Make Them Pay (1985; republished as Adjourned in 2009)
• White Wash (1985; republished as Payback in 2011)

Nonfiction

• The Trinity Implosion (co-written with Robin Moore) (1976)
• The Washington Connection (co-written with Robin Moore and Nick Rowe) (1977)
• Country Inns of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia (1977)
• Supercharging Your PC (1987)
• The High-Technology Editorial Guide and Stylebook (1991)
• The French Paradox and Beyond (1992)
• Erotica Biz: How Sex Shaped the Internet (2002)
• The Wrath of Grapes (2011)