Is there anything that still needs to be said? Anyone out there who doesn’t actually have a copy of this on their house?

Given the sales figures I somehow doubt it!!

Some people are no doubt disappointed by it, others will love it - I’m somewhere in between. It’s typical Dan Brown stuff, and I don’t mean that as a criticism.

Yes, he seems to choose ideas, themes and plots which end up causing a bit of tension with one mysterious group or other but then that brings a certain amount of publicity which I’m sure does him and his publishers no harm in the long run. Much of the hype and palaver which followed on from The Da Vinci Code wasn’t exactly based on truth or anything actually in the book itself.

It was a case of Daily Mail syndrome if you like - people getting all hot and bothered about a book they had never read, and in 99% of cases getting into that state not because they themselves were affected or overly bothered but because it may make someone else feel that way so they are coming out in symapthy. There is nothing worse than someone being upset and angry on someone else’s behalf - especially when the person who should (or could) be upset or angry isn’t!

Anyway, this time it the Freemasons who are apparently not chuffed at the contents of a Dan Brown book - and that may or may not be the case.

Personally I know nothing at all about the Freemasons and while I accept that, as is always the case, Dan Brown has done a lot of research before sitting down to write this yarn, I’m not going to take everything he says in it as gospel. They may well all carry on as they do in this book or there may be a bit of artistic licence involved to spice things up a bit - or perhaps a mixture of both.

Who cares!

The story certainly races along at a cracking pace, although unlike the Da Vinci Code which I felt never let up and I could have happily sat there and read the whole book at once, The Lost Symbol did bog down a bit in one or two places which made it a bit harder going. This was a rare occurence though and didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the book.

If it’s viewed simply as a novel and not as a work of non-fiction (which it isn’t obviously!) then this book is a decent way of passing a good few hours. The trouble with the Da Vinci Code is that it mentioned things which the church didn’t like at all and that caused a bit of an uproar and while Brown happily admitted that his book was a work of fiction for some reason that passed a lot of people by. Had it not been for that, he would probably be a pretty average author but that controversy has meant that this book and all the others which follow are under increased scrutiny.

Of course this is offset by the good it will be doing to his bank balance…