Detailed item info | Synopsis | In Dan Brown's long-awaited follow-up to THE DA VINCI CODE, symbologist Robert Langdon is again forced to try to crack a series of centuries-old codes in a matter of hours in order to avoid a national catastrophe. Though specific details of the plot are a closely guarded secret, a series of clues concealed on the dust jacket of THE DA VINCI CODE and on Dan Brown's website has fans buzzing about possible topics. How will the Freemasons be involved? Will Langdon solve the mystery of the Kryptos scroll, an as-yet-undecoded sculpture at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia? And lastly, is there no help for the widow's son?
Thanks to the massive success of THE DA VINCI CODE, which sold around 80 million copies worldwide, Dan Brown was burdened with a puzzling predicament every bit as fiendish as those routinely faced by his hero, the swashbuckling symbologist Robert Langdon--how to follow up one of the most popular books of all time. But Brown has risen to the challenge magnificently, with a big assist from one of the most code-crazed and symbol-ridden societies in history, the Freemasons. Langdon has been summoned to Washington D.C. by his old friend Peter Solomon, but when he arrives at the Capitol building to meet Solomon, Langdon instead finds friend's severed hand, which has been tattooed and strategically placed beneath a portrait of an ascendant George Washington. And the chase is on, as Langdon and Katherine Solomon, Peter's sister, must avert a national disaster by deciphering a series of cryptic clues hidden in the architecture of America's capital. Waiting at the end of the trail is a nefarious monk named Mal'akh, whose masochistic tendencies include tattoos and self-castration. Langdon and Solomon's riddle-fueled pursuit will eventually entail the Library of Congress, the headquarters of the CIA, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and several other notable sites. And while THE LOST SYMBOL might lack the incendiary subject matter of its predecessor, conspiracy junkies and proponents of mythic sea creatures will be likely titillated by Brown's controversial contention that there is tank of giant squids hidden in the archives of the Smithsonian.
| | Size | | Length: | 509 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in. | | Width: | 6.5 in. | | Thickness: | 1.5 in. | | Weight: | 27.2 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | The eagerly awaited follow-up to the best-selling The Da Vinci Code once again features Robert Langdon and weaves five years of the author's research into the story's twelve-hour timeframe, in an exhilarating thriller that is full of surprises. Five million first printing.
| | Industry reviews | "Brown's narrative moves rapidly, except for those clunky moments when people sound like encyclopedias....But no one reads Brown for style, right? The reason we read Dan Brown is to see what happens to Langdon: We want to know if he will overcome slim odds to uncover Mal'akh's motives and a cunning plan that, while not involving a vial of antimatter, is a major threat to national security....THE LOST SYMBOL is...like the experience on any roller coaster -- thrilling, entertaining and then it's over."
(09/14/2009)
"Too many popular authors have followed huge hits with terrible embarrassments. Mr. Brown hasn't done that. Instead, he's bringing sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead....Mr. Brown's splendid ability to concoct 64-square grids outweighs what might otherwise be authorial shortcomings. Within this book's hermetically sealed universe, characters' motivations don't really have to make sense; they just have to generate the nonstop momentum that makes THE LOST SYMBOL impossible to put down."
(09/14/2009)
"Writers envious of Brown's sales...have devoted much ink to his deficiencies as a stylist. These are still in place....So is Brown's habit of turning characters into docents. But so, too, is his knack for packing huge amounts of information (spurious or no) into an ever-accelerating narrative. Call it Brownian motion: a comet-tail ride of short paragraphs, short chapters, beautifully spaced reveals and, in the case of THE LOST SYMBOL, a socko unveiling of the killer's true identity."
(09/15/2009)
"As [a] District of Columbia resident, I must say that Mr. Brown does a first-rate job of delivering a Cook's tour with duly sinister overtones of Washington's famous sites....He also masterfully teases out the hidden Masonic threads in America's founding, evident in such disparate phenomena as the Masonic affiliations of at least half the Founding Fathers, including George Washington, and the design of the dollar bill, with its prominent pyramid on the back."
(09/16/2009)
"[P]ure, cheesy fun....Brown's plot is like a set of Russian nested dolls, with one revelation hiding another. He takes this mystical quest stuff quite seriously, and his unabashed enthusiasm for mystical topics such as pyramids, ancient wisdom, and Masonic initiation rites has an infectious quality that doubtless fuels his popularity....Perhaps the most notable quality of THE LOST SYMBOL is the breezy manner in which Brown's characters and his narrative examine truth, God, and other grand topics."
(09/18/2009)
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