The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
Dan Brown is back with another Robert Langdon adventure, the first in almost a decade. Our hero is in Prague with his new love interest, the renowned academic Katherine Soloman. The action mostly takes place on a single day and begins the morning after Katherine’s lecture about her upcoming book. In it, she argues a theory about shared consciousness and how it explains “paranormal” events.
Langdon’s day starts very early, and, while jogging on a deserted Charles Bridge, he experiences something which defies belief. Katherine goes missing and back in New York, her publisher has been hacked with all digital copies of her book destroyed.
Luckily, her editor has printed off a hard copy but, unluckily, he’s kidnapped while attempting to get the manuscript copied.
Back in Prague, Langdon is being hunted down by the police, the CIA and the US embassy. He doesn’t know who to trust and nor does the reader.
Then there’s the young man who is convinced he’s the Golem of Prague (a mythical figure from Jewish folklore – a man made from clay) hiding in plain sight while killing those he’s deemed guilty of harm.
Brown comes in for a lot of mockery for his somewhat-improbable plots, but if you suspend disbelief completely and go along with it, it’s great entertainment.
Regardless of the snobby criticism of his work, he knows how to spin a good yarn by grabbing the reader’s attention early and never letting it go.
For most of the story his timing is perfect, but the end is marred by the amount of guff between the two unexpected plot twists. Regardless, The Secret of Secrets is jolly good fun.