Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol

Review by John McKitterick on show 15th Oct.
Anticipation, waiting to light blue touch paper - but damp squib!
Ends up virtually copying the plot of Davinci and being too clever.
As with DV Code, he outlines some facts about Masons & Washington DC to draw in the intrigue.
Story opens with an 'event' which pulls the main characters together, all characters can be assimilated to those in DV Code.
Robert Langdon - Symbologist
Katherine Solomon - (the Sophie Neveau, not last of Jesus' bloodline) a scientist given limitless money to investigate the power of the human mind.
Peter Solomon - her brother (Sophie Neveaus uncle) and old colleague of Langdons who gets kidnapped.
The villain of the peace, Mal'Akh, is similar to the self-flagellating monk of DVCode and Sato, a 'Rosa Kreb like' CIA operative who is either a good or bad character . The story is of a Masonic legend referring to a lost or well hidden item that will enlighten all mankind. It is really about revenge Mal'Akh has orchestrated everything over many years in order to get his own back on the Solomon family. He invited Langdon into thje process as a 'worthy adversary' and to give creedence to the goings on while trying to locate the Lost Symbol.
As with DVC, Langdon spends lots of time running around vaults and tunnels beneath the city, gets caught and almost killed, escapes and realises that what he's looking for was there all the time.
As far as keeping the code crackers happy, the 1st symbol code didn't apper until chapter 41 and I cracked it without pen and paper! Of course it led on to another puzzle and so on, but through the entire story, it left me feeling 'where is this going? is there a point?'
And the final revelations? I won't say...........
by John McKitterick