Book Review: The Lost Symbol

     The Lost Symbol is a novel that was written by Dan Brown.
This books follows Robert Langdon on a thrilling and mysterious 24 hour adventure. Robert is a Harvard symbologist, and his life was normal until he received a mysterious phone call.

Langdon was originally told that the phone call was his long time friend, Peter Solomon's secretary. He was told that Peter had requested that he go to Washington D.C as a guest speaker to present a last minute speech for Peter's meeting. Robert agreed to do so, and arrived in D.C, only to find that there never was a meeting, and that Peter's 'secretary' was never a secretary.

Robert later finds out that he was 'summoned' or tricked to assist a genius, but crazy mad man, Mal'akh. Mal'akh believes that Robert can unlock a secret map/code to reveal a great secret that had been hidden for thousands of years. Robert personally doesn't believe that it exists, but he agrees to do it because Mal'akh had kidnapped Peter Solomon. Robert, and Peter's sister, Katherine, begin a intense journey to break the code in order to save Peter, and also to prevent secret information from being revealed to the entire world. I don't want to give away any more information in the book, so I'll leave it at that.
But if you really want to know what happened, I highly suggest that you read it :-)

Brown was really great at building suspense throughout the entire book, and he added a lot of plot twists. I thought that the beginning of the book was rather slow, but Brown does a nice job of building up the story to the climax. The story starts to speed through near the middle of the book. Brown makes the reader stand on their toes and hold their breath, waiting for the next event in the story. There are a lot of gruesome events that happen, but there were also funny moments as well.

In this book, near the very end, Brown revealed something that changed the entire plot (the actual identity of the kidnapper), and I had to sit for a few moments just processing what had happened. I admit, this makes the story more fun, and you can piece together the entire story at the very end.

I highly suggest this book to anyone who enjoys reading thriller/adventure books, and especially if you're into conspiracy theories and cryptography. But even if you're not into conspiracy theories or any similar subjects, (like me), it was still a very engaging and exciting book.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and I plan on reading another book by Dan Brown called 'The Da Vinci Code'. The Lost Symbol is actually a follow up to 'The Da Vinci Code', but the book still made sense even if you haven't read them in order. Brown has written a series of books that follow the same main character, Robert Langdon, and his adventures. Brown has also written other books such as: 'Inferno', 'Angels & Demons', and 'Deception Point'.

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Here are other reviews on this book:

The wait is over. The Lost Symbol is here–and you don’t have to be a Freemason to enjoy it…thrilling and entertaining, like the experience on a roller coaster.
- The Los Angeles Times

Dan Brown brings sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead…His code and clue-filled book is dense with exotica…amazing imagery…and the nonstop momentum that makes The Lost Symbol impossible to put down. Splendid…another mind-blowing Robert Langdon story.
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Call it Brownian motion: A comet tail-ride of beautifully spaced reveals and a socko unveiling of the killer’s true identity.
- The Washington Post

Robert Langdon remains a terrific hero, a bookish intellectual who’s cool in a crisis and quick on his feet… The codes are intriguing, the settings present often-seen locales in a fresh light, and Brown keeps the pages turning.
- Entertainment Weekly

A fascinating pleasure…upends our usual assumptions about the world we think we know.

– Newsweek