Gritty Realism

I'm reading Dan Brown's Deception Point right now. I'm unimpressed with the realism. Supercruising planes landing on glaciers, a rather callous disregard of national boundaries, juvenile politics, patently silly escapes from certain death, ice guns, the Aurora project, and and super-micro-robots. It's a reasonably entertaining suspense story, but it lacks the verisimlitude of Angels and Demons. And I'm also pretty sure I've already figured out who the bad guy is after about halfway through the story (which was about when I figured out who the Teacher was while reading Da Vinci). But, the story is well-structured and tense -- and cinematic in its imagery and breathless pacing. I suppose I could do worse than pattern my own writing after this -- Dan Brown's obviously shallow potboilers have made him a very, very rich man.