My Weekly Book

This is the fourth and most recent book to be written by Dan Brown, and the only one so far published to come after The da Vinci Code, although he is understood to be working on the literal follow-up right now. It has far more in common with his first book, Deception Point in that it is a tense, political thriller dealing with elements of the American intelligence and security communities.

If you like thrillers, it is a good read - having read four Dan Brown books in rapid succession, I am actually starting to experience RSI of the thumb. I would count myself as a huge fan of Mr Brown's both in terms of the Robert Langdon books and of the others.

And yet, and yet… dare I say that this book is actually pretty formulaic? For instance, he's used the same rough version of the hero and heroine in all four books, as far as I can tell. Also, you could see the villain coming a mile off in this one. Nevertheless, I don't wish to whinge. I don't feel my time was wasted in reading it, I just felt that the other three books were exceptional and this was just good. It has all the usual strengths - an excellent and intellectual plot, a lack of inhibitions about blowing everything on his stage sky-high, plenty of suspense and puzzles for the reader to solve.

I can see why The da Vinci Code would be a terribly hard act to follow. I just hope he can follow it, and it doesn't turn out to have been a peak.

[Jan 2008 update: of course, we are still waiting for that elusive follow-up, supposedly named The Solomon Key. It has so far been slated for release in both 2006 and 2007... Is Dan Brown ever publishing another book?]

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2004 at 12:00 pm and is filed under 2004 - Books read, 2007 reading challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.