The Return of the MEGA-BLOCKBUSTER

DAPPER Harvard symbologist professor Robert Langdon is back for another roller-coaster of a ride in Dan Brown’s eagerly anticipated new conspiracy thriller, The Lost Symbol (Knopf Doubleday/Transworld, September 15, 2009). This time, the focus of the story is the Freemasons, and it is set in the capital of the United States: Washington, D.C.

If you’ve read and enjoyed Angels & Demons (2000) and The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol promises more of the same. You can expect lots of diabolical secret conspiracies and end-of-chapter cliffhangers, enigmatic codes and symbols, all in the pursuit of a fabled Masonic object. There’s of course the requisite bald, tattooed steroid-saturated giant of a villain and love interest to spice things up. You’ve got to hand it to Brown: he sure knows how to plot and he is rather good at crafting twists and turns that keep you turning the pages.

Yes, it is the plot that matters, and in The Lost Symbol, Brown delivers this in spates.

Let the juggernaut begin!