The One with The Lost Symbol

129. Title & Author: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (509 pages)

Genre: Fiction--Thriller

Completed: 15 December 2009

Summary & Review:

Shortly after finding the bloodline of Christ in The da Vinci Code and exposing the truth behind the Illuminati in Angels & Demons, symbologist Robert Langdon is back. When a call from his good friend Peter Solomon brings him to Washington D.C., Langdon finds himself in the nation's capital under very different circumstances than he had anticipated: Peter has been kidnapped, a severed hand is found in the rotunda of the Capitol building tattooed with occult symbols, and a madman is forcing him to find and decode the legendary Masonic Pyramid, a map that leads to the Ancient Mysteries.

A Dan Brown book is an interesting experience, one in which the reader feels like he is being manipulated as he reads. The book is full of passages like, "As Langdon finally opened the door, he gasped. He couldn't believe what he saw." Then the chapter would end and the reader wouldn't be told what caused Langdon to gasp or scream or faint until much later. While this can be an effective tool to increase suspense and to keep the reader turning pages, the number of times that Brown did this caused it to cheapen the effect, catalyzing suspense to turn into frustration. Another quirk that could wear on the reader is Brown's penchant for emphasizing certain words in much of his dialogue. He did this a lot.

Additionally, Brown spent a lot of time in this book defending the Masons. Numerous passages essentially said the same thing, i.e. that Masons had been misunderstood throughout history and that there were dozens of biased, untrue myths spread about them by people who didn't fully understand their practices. One would think that Brown would not then spread such myths about other often misunderstood groups, but in two instances he did so about Mormons.

Thanks to CBO for loaning me this to read.

Rating: 5.5