Product Description

Book with masonic content

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-15
• Released on: 2009-09-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 528 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Vehicles move through the murky night, carrying highly secret material. And that clandestine material will only be available--after midnight--to those who have signed non-disclosure notices. The plot of the new Dan Brown novel? No, it’s actually how reviewers such as myself obtained our copies of the much-anticipated The Lost Symbol, the follow-up to the Da Vinci Code. And as we read it in (literally) the cold light of dawn, we wonder: is it likely to match the earlier book’s all-conquering, phenomenal success?

Firstly, it should be noted that The Lost Symbol has incorporated all the elements that so transfixed readers in The Da Vinci Code: a complex, mystifying plot (with the reader set quite as many challenges as the protagonist); breathless, helter-skelter pace (James Patterson's patented technique of keeping readers hooked by ending chapters with a tantalisingly unresolved situation is very much part of Dan Brown’s armoury). And, of course, the winning central character, resourceful symbologist Robert Langdon, is back, risking his life to crack a dangerous mystery involving the Freemasons (replacing the controversial trappings of the Catholic Church and homicidal monks of the last book). And while Dan Brown will never win any prizes for literary elegance, his prose is always succinctly at the service of delivering a thoroughly involving thriller narrative in vividly evoked locales (here, Washington DC, colourfully conjured).

Robert Langdon flies to Washington after an urgent invitation to speak in the Capitol building. The invitation appears to have come from a friend with copper-bottomed Masonic connections, Peter Solomon. But Langdon has been tricked: Solomon has, in fact, been kidnapped, and (echoing the grisly opening of the last book) a macabre mutilation plunges Langdon into a tortuous quest. His friend’s severed hand lies in the Capitol building, positioned to point to a George Washington portrait that shows the father of his country as a pagan deity. The ruthless criminal nemesis here is another terrifying figure in Brown’s gallery of grotesques: Mal’akh, a powerfully built eunuch with a body festooned with tattoos. Mal’akh is seeking a Masonic pyramid that possesses a formidable supernatural power, and a pulse-pounding hunt is afoot, with Langdon stalled rather than aided by the CIA.

Caveats are pointless here; Dan Brown, comfortably the world’s most successful author, is utterly review-proof. And there's no arguing with the fact that he has his finger on the pulse of the modern thriller reader, furnishing the mechanics of the blockbuster adventure with energy and invention. Like its predecessor, The Lost Symbol will unquestionably be--in fact, already is--a publishing phenomenon. --Barry Forshaw

Review
As engaging a hero as you could wish for...A narrative that can grip you like a vice --Mail on Sunday

Unputdownable...Gripping...Jaw-dropping...The blockbuster read of the year. --News of the World

You'll devour this latest offering - it's been well worth the wait. --The Sun

So compelling that several times I came close to a cardiac arrest...The Lost Symbol is as perfectly constructed as the Washington architecture it escorts us around. --Sunday Express

With best-seller status never in doubt, Brown has written another page-turner...A gripping read --BBC News

From the Publisher
The Lost Symbol is the eagerly anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's No. 1 international phenomenon with 81 million copies in print worldwide and the UK's biggest selling paperback novel of all time, and it will once again feature Dan Brown's unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon. This book's narrative takes place in a 12-hour period, and from the first page, Dan's readers will feel the thrill of discovery as they follow Robert Langdon through a masterful and unexpected new landscape.The Lost Symbol is a brilliant and compelling thriller. Dan Brown's prodigious talent for storytelling, infused with history, codes and intrigue, is on full display in this new book.

'This novel has been a strange and wonderful journey', says Dan Brown himself. 'Weaving five years of research into the story's 12-hour timeframe was an exhilarating challenge. Robert Langdon's life clearly moves a lot faster than mine'.

Customer Reviews

Interesting but very Staid
The Lost Symbol takes a long time to get going and although there are some interesting observations around The Masons and Washington's history, the plot really does creek quite badly. It's been a while since I read Dan Brown's other books but I do not remember if the constant use of highlighting people's thoughts throughout the narrative was something he used before but it was very noticeable and irritating here. The 'twist' (without giving it away) was odd as the early part of the book misleads in this regard. The Lost Symbol did keep my interest until the end but left me feeling mainly deflated in terms of expectation.

Of course it will sell, but . . .
I found this book truly awful and the last 50 odd pages not only unnecessary to the plot but almost unreadable. It was pure preaching - God and America, or rather, America and God.
So what if we have previous characters? They added nothing to the atmosphere. Robert Langdon remains a cipher, no other characterisations are any better. I tried to root for the villain but he turned out as boring as the rest.
I did learn at least one thing - what a circumpunct is. No doubt that will be a great thing in later life.
Personally, I think it would have been far better for everyone if the threatened broadcast had got through and nailed a lot of truly unpleasant people, high places or not.

A rollercoaster of a novel...with some issues.
Like many, I reserved my copy of Dan Brown's long awaited sequel to The Da Vinci Code back in March. Yesterday the book fell through my letterbox and I pounced on it and proceeded, I plead guilty, to race my way through it in under 24 hours. The book is fantastic, the plot is well developed in the main and Robert Langdon continues to exude his appeal as the bookish Professor of symbols. My criticism however, lies in the plot and Langdon's interaction with other characters.

The plot is markedly similar in feeling to the Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons - I felt that in the demand for a new book, Brown has merely recycled some parts of his previous book and included them in this one. Don't get me wrong, the recycled goods are sparkly and new, but readers who know The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons well will be aware that they'll have the occasional flashback to the older book whilst reading the new one. Brown knows his symbols and uses them to great effect in this novel, but there's just something that doesn't entirely fit. By the end of the book, Washington D.C feels almost like the Vatican. The basic premise, as it was in The Da Vinci Code, was that all is not as it seems. Newton and his band of brothers created symbols implanted everywhere and those with the relevant skill set can treat them and explore the knowledge within. A great plot that leaves the reader exhilarated throughout the book, the first time they read it.

The beauty of The Da Vinci Code was that it was really very plausible. Millions of us flocked to the internet to look up everything in it that caught our interest. The thrill was amplified by the fact that a lot turned out to be true, if Google is accurate. However, the fact that the same situation is true in The Lost Symbol left me feeling as though the situation should have been changed, the book written differently - a case of been there and done that. The book reads, in large sections, like a tourist map of Washington, with Langdon and his friends as the guides. Langdon, with one encouraging word from another character, launches into huge drawn out explanations of know-it-all fact, leading the reader to feel as though they are in the Lecture Theatre being taught. This feeling was minimised in The Da Vinci Code, to the extent that one can read it over and over without feeling as though they're learning. The same cannot be said of The Lost Symbol - it's a very large lecture, an enjoyable one though.

The refreshing mix of fact and fiction left me feeling refreshed and exhilarated for The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, but in The Lost Symbol, I feel that the amount of fact in the novel, and therefore the amount of Langdon's explanations, was too much, and so it blurred the lines between fact and fiction and almost became a sequence of facts, linked together by Langdon's narrative and the situations created in the plot. One wonders if Dan Brown is a fiction writer or someone who has an excellent researcher whom he has relied upon a little heavily in writing this book. Obviously, following the sheer success of the previous book, there must have been a large amount of pressure to make it bigger, better, more complex. He's done this, but sadly, the narrative is strained by all the factual explanations to the point where the reader is aware they're being lectured.

The other criticism I had of the book is Langdon's character, particularly his character's involvement in the plot. I get the feeling that our dear Professor Langdon may fall prey to what I call the Jessica Fletcher Syndrome. Where a character is serialised, it can get to the point where the reader sees the writer struggling to come up with innovative situations to place their character in and so the plots get more and more outlandish until CIA Directors are taking a Symbols expert and sending him into buildings with CIA Agents, whilst naming him "one of the team". The other worrying claim was that Langdon was the "only person in the world" with the expertise to solve the puzzle - what happens if he dies...will the age old Masonic groups crumble, will government cease to work? In Dan Brown's world, it seems they would, which is troublesome. In previous novels, what made Langdon so good was that he felt as though he was out of his depth, relying on his instincts and education. In this book, he's a lot more of a celebrity, complete with being recognised. Much like the famous J.B. Fletcher. The same happened in Murder, She Wrote...wherever Jessica went, murder followed in increasingly bizarre ways. Given Brown's recent statement that he has around 23 more ideas for books involving Langdon, it seem's we may be subjected to the diluting of a great character over the next couple of decades. The great test of a writer, I believe, is that he or she knows when to stop writing a character; knows when all they set out to do has been accomplished and that playing with the character further would result in the degradation of it. I fear that Dan Brown will fall into this trap with Langdon.

Aside from those two issues, I really enjoyed this book. It was fast paced with a great plot, although sometimes overly complex, and a good twist near the end. I read it non-stop and loved each moment of it, despite my misgivings. I would read it again, but ultimately felt that it was a bit forced. When reading The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, it felt natural and that they had been written with absolute devotion. With The Lost Symbol, I felt that it was more of an "I have to write another book" situation, rather than a "I'd really enjoy writing another one". I think long time Dan Brown fans will ultimately prefer the older novels such as Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels & Demons, and of course, the tour de force that is The Da Vinci Code.