The Da Vinci Code writer filed a brief with the court hearing plagiarism charges against him. “At first glance, the document bears the giddy signatures of a Dan Brown novel. It’s chopped into staccato chapters; the language is awkward (“I quite literally woke up one morning and decided to write a thriller that delved into NSA”); and its hero is a simple man who is being pursued by evil forces he doesn’t quite understand. Educated at Amherst and Phillips Exeter Academy, Brown had an unusual literary awakening.”