The Lost Symbol - Softcover

Brown, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400079144 ISBN 13: 9781400079148

Publisher: Anchor Books, 2010

Synopsis

#1 Worldwide Bestseller

Famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon answers an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. Capitol Building. His plans are interrupted when a disturbing object--artfully encoded with five symbols--is discovered in the building. Langdon recognizes in the find an ancient invitation into a lost world of esoteric, potentially dangerous wisdom.

When his mentor Peter Solomon--a long-standing Mason and beloved philanthropist--is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that the only way to save Solomon is to accept the mystical invitation and plunge headlong into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and one inconceivable truth . . . all under the watchful eye of Dan Brown's most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced story with surprises at every turn--one of Brown's most riveting novels.

About this title

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:

"Dan Brown brings sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead . . . His code and clue-filled book is dense with exotica . . . amazing imagery . . . and the nonstop momentum that makes The Lost Symbol impossible to put down. Splendid. . . . Another mind-blowing Robert Langdon story." --New York Times

"Thrilling in the extreme, a definite page-flipper." --Daily News (New York)

"Call it Brownian motion: a comet-tail ride of beautifully spaced reveals and a socko unveiling of the killer's true identity." --Washington Post

"The wait is over. The Lost Symbol is here--and you don't have to be a Freemason to enjoy it . . . .Thrilling and entertaining, like the experience on a roller coaster." --Los Angeles Times

"Robert Langdon remains a terrific hero, a bookish intellectual who's cool in a crisis and quick on his feet . . . .The codes are intriguing, the settings present often-seen locales in a fresh light, and Brown keeps the pages turning." --Entertainment Weekly

"A fascinating pleasure. . . . Upends our usual assumptions about the world we think we know." --Newsweek

"A roaring ride. . . . A caper filled with puzzles, grids, symbols, pyramids and a secret that can bestow 'unfathomable power.'" --San Francisco Chronicle

"Dan Brown is a master of the breathless, puzzle-driven thriller." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1400079144
• ISBN 13: 9781400079148
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 639