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THE LOST SYMBOL
by Dan Brown
Corgi, July 2010
670 pages
7.99 GBP
ISBN: 0552149527


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Robert Langdon, the star of Brown's previous blockbuster, THE DA VINCI CODE, returns for another outing, this time in Washington DC, drawn there by an urgent invitation to give a lecture in the Capitol Building to save his old friend, Peter Solomon, from the embarrassment of having to cancel a prestigious event organized by the Smithsonian Institute after the original speaker is taken sick.

Almost immediately, Langdon is confronted with the grisly evidence that he has been taken for a ride, in more ways than one. His friend's severed hand is found in the Capitol Rotunda, the fingers positioned to point up to an enormous fresco, The Apotheosis of Washington, depicting the transformation of George Washington into a god.

A telephone call from whoever had impersonated Solomon's secretary to bring him to this spot informs Langdon that if he wishes to save his friend's life, he will embark on a search to uncover an ancient Masonic mystery concealed in the heart of the city.

There are times – all too frequently - when the book reads like a guidebook to the Masonic history of Washington DC and it has already spawned the inevitable spin-offs purporting to unlock the book's secrets. I have no idea how much of Brown's outpourings on the subject of Masonic symbolism and architecture have any basis in fact and, quite frankly, no desire to find out, but I'm sure the book have people flocking in their thousands to the sites Langdon visits in his search for a secret which is said to be capable of unlocking the unimaginable power of the human mind. Impressed? I wasn't, although I will admit to having enjoyed Langdon's two previous outings well enough, so I certainly didn't come to the book with any particular prejudices.

I think the problem likes in the fact that I have no liking whatsoever for cryptic crosswords, and thus no particular desire to follow the trail of clues that the book scatters in front of its readers like crumbs from a rich man's table. There is an enormous wealth of detail in the book, and Brown has done enough research to carry it off reasonably convincingly, but I soon became irritated with the constant narrative shifts and internal cliffhangers, which just left me longing for the author to stick with one plot thread long enough for me to draw breath and actually get to know his characters a bit better.

The villain of the piece was suitably grotesque. Mal'akh, a man who had altered his body beyond recognition with a series of almost all-encompassing tattoos, and by making the ultimate sacrifice of actually castrating himself, in pursuit of his own ultimate transformation. This is probably the one area of the book in which Brown's attempts to conceal the twists and turns of the plot fail utterly. Either that or he intended to telegraph the man's identity almost as soon as he introduced him. Either way, I found that the denouement, when it finally arrives, lacks any feeling shock-value, and on top of that, the Big Reveal in the final pages felt like a complete anti-climax. On the plus side, the book did manage a few tense moments en route, making me wonder how Brown was going to get his characters out of the trouble he so relentlessly lands them in.

Brown's loyal following won't be disappointed, I'm sure, and the book has no doubt fuelled a resurgence of interest in the Masons. All it lacked, for the sake of completeness, was a guest appearance by the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, but maybe I'd just blinked and missed them in the wealth of detail festooning the pages.

§ Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.

Reviewed by Linda Wilson, August 2010

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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