"In 1991, a document was locked in the safe of the director of the CIA. The document is still there today. Its cryptic text includes references to an ancient portal and an unknown location underground..."

If two things were certain about this book one would be it would sell very well, some 80 million copies pre ordered world-wide so far, and the other is it would be written as a film script and even more in caricature than the previous Langdon books, insuring the movie rites early. The first line in the book is: 'Since the beginning of time...'. Browns prose is still reassuringly as clunky as Frankenstein's tap dancing.

-The Author-

Yes, Dan Browns writing style is very cheesy, and he's blatant with his one-dimensional characters but the DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons are great fiction reads and exciting two, the epitome of the page turner. And because we all loved those code breaking crackers we went out and bought the other two Brown books, Deception Point and Digital Fortress, not quite as exhilarating but comfortably making Brown the world's richest author, bouncing the likes of Clancy and Grisham into the gutter. This meant his new book had to live up to the big two, this the third tale to feature Professor Robert Langdon, the Tom Hanks character in the current films, the author definitely living vicariously through his books as the handsome cryptologist. He even convinces himself he has reached God status by the end of this one.

Langdon is back and soon running around Washington DC cracking codes when his high end Mason friend, Peter Solomon, is kidnapped in the American capital, a proof of life left in the centre of the Capital Building (the white one that's not The Whitehouse) with the first codes printed on it, pointing up to the dome for the second clue. A madman, Mal`akh, obsessed with body art and the occult has tricked Langdon to Washington and wants him to crack an age old legend, that of the 'Ancient Mysteries', a secret held only by the equally ancient order of the Stone Masons, the mystery deliberately hidden amongst Washington DC`s national monuments for two hundreds years. The city is apparently based on Rome and its creators wanted to decorate it with enigmatic symbols and messages to pay homage to other more ancient cities of the world that also hid the secrets.

"Religion has become a backed up toll booth to heaven"

Brown has a sense of fun with this book; early comments about the DaVinci Code adventure a clear stab at his numerous literary critics. When asked by a character at a book reading, Langdon replies, ahh...the chase for the grail, 'what a scandal that caused!' I say keep counting the money Danny Boy and don't worry about your detractors who envy your bank balance not your talent.

It's the usual extremely short chapters to build the tension, the plot as rapid as Sol Campbell running for Nottingham Station. He deliciously paints out the cliché characters in the book to fit the impending movie, a blind mysterious priest and a chain smoking CIA agent to name but two. I think I have mentioned the atrocious clunky dialogue. The code stuff is not as exciting as the other Langdon book and the plot slows down and speeds up like a car kangarooing because of that. We rely totally on the interactive code breaking in the book and that excitement is just not there this time.

Setting this in America amongst its familiar landmarks is clearly a ploy by Brown to target home consumers who didn't embrace the previous books as much as the rest of the planet did. In fact he gives away the ending in the first few pages if you're sharp enough to pick up on it. You always have to bear in mind with Americans that less than 20% have passports and only 15% read about the world in daily newspapers and so they need lots of clues and a big poke in the eye when they get it wrong. He also annoyingly explains EVERY piece of the plot, in the plot, if you didn't get it the first time, leaving no opportunity for the narrative to fail close inspection. If someone's lurking behind the door Brown will explain why he's there when he was there first, the authors biggest irritant.