⚡ Pace: fast · 🎭 Emotions: tense, mysterious · 🚪 Entry threshold: low · ⭐ Why read: masonic secrets, symbols and codes
Brown’s book The Lost Symbol, originally intended to be published under the title Solomon’s Key, came out in 2009. Chronologically, this is the third novel about Robert Langdon’s adventures, this time about the Freemasons’ secrets and rituals.
Robert Langdon, an expert in religious symbolism from Harvard, receives an urgent invitation to give a lecture at the Capitol House in Washington, D.C. But instead of a sophisticated audience, the professor finds five mysterious symbols tattooed on the severed hand of his mentor, mason Peter Solomon. Everything that used to look familiar had turned into a mysterious world of the Freemasons’ secrets and previously unknown revelations that seem to lead to one extraordinary and impossible truth.
“Sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see light”
Plunging into the adventures, conflicts, and mysteries, the reader simultaneously acquires knowledge of the history of the Capitol, Washington, and Freemasonry. Readers become connoisseurs of Albrecht Durer’s works, whose masterpiece, in keeping with Brown’s tradition, becomes a guide on the way to finding the solution. By the way, the symbolism in Durer’s works is really fantastic.
“Time is a river... Books are boats. Many volumes start down that stream, only to be wrecked and lost beyond recall in its sands. Only a few, a very few, endure the testings of time and live to bless the ages following”
Dan Brown reminds the reader time and again: God is in each of us, so if you want to change something you should start with yourself. It is an old truth, but it produces a strong impression in the context next to the preface to the Masonic Bible.
Beyond all doubt, you’ll enjoy your reading. And also, you will surely wish to read the book again after some time. Besides the novel, you will have books of reference in front of you and literature on art and history to find explanations for everything that Brown wrote about or refuted. His books do not leave anybody indifferent.
📚 Did you know 📖
This novel was conceived as a sequel to The Da Vinci Code and was originally titled The Solomon Key.
Set in Washington, D.C., Brown personally visited Masonic temples to gather material.
Over one million copies were sold within the first 24 hours – a record at the time.
A film adaptation was planned but later cancelled; instead, the TV series Langdon was released in 2021.
There are now 6 novels in Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon series: Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), Inferno (2013), Origin (2017), and The Secret of Secrets (2025).
Funny twist: after the book’s release, interest in Capitol tours and Masonic museums surged dramatically.