Book 45/52.
The Secret of Secrets - Dan Brown.
My Rating: 3/5.
One of my all-time favourite authors, and as soon as his book was released, I was super keen to read it before I get distracted by others’ reviews and thoughts. I had pre-booked the same on Amazon, and it was delivered right the very next day to my utter surprise. Unfortunately, this will be the first from Dan that didn’t work for me as I expected to thrill, engage and shock me by the great revelation in the end as it happens in all his stories. I believe he overcooked it this time and took too much data from social media to make it more interesting, which, in my opinion, didn’t work in his favour (at least in my opinion). As usually it happens in all his stories, Robert Langdon travels to Prague to attend a seminar for his long time friend Katherine is supposed to address, where she reveals that she is about to release her book on Human Consciousness which takes the theory to next level (much to the shock and surprise of CIA), of course they try their level best to sabotage the publication of the book as they themselves are working on a similar theor of their own (or was it theirs?) in between comes a suspicious character Golem of Prague too to further engage the reader on a break-neck thrill and suspense. Now, the parties involved, if we are counting, are Robert Langdon with his friend Katherine, followed by US Embassy Head Heide, further followed by her security team of Marines, a team of CIA hoodlums working with or against them, further followed by the illegal test subjects who have to take their own revenge on the whole system. And in this hodgepodge of things, somewhere after the big reveal around half the way (total 650+ pages), I lost interest, yet finished it to keep my record intact.
What doesn’t work especially in this book is the plethora of science and scientific terms that Katherine, Gessner (one who invites her to speak at the seminar) and Robert Langdon throw our way. As convincing as they may sound, they do get too confusing at times, and there is no end to his theories, so much so that he reminded me of Christopher Nolan, who shows no respite for his audience, much as we love his movies, but none of them is straightforward. On top of that, this book, I guess, is a few years late, as so many instances which were like I had already seen in so many Instagram reels in the last few years, they all make their way into the book to my shock and heartbreak. You’ve got to read the book if you are keen to know more about the same, but I must say that this might become his least-read book. On top of that, as his last too isn’t adapted yet into a movie or a TV series, this too will share the same fate as Tom Hanks is too old now to take the character forward and looking at the size and the stretch of the story, it won’t be easy to adapt it in the first place. In my opinion, if anyone can play Robert Langdon from the current Hollywood crop, it will be George Clooney, who coincidentally gets a mention in the book, too. I still rated it a generous 3/5 for the intrigue, suspense and the lovely characters and the stories behind so many monuments that they come across during their chase or being chased. And the best part about this one, too, is that the story takes place in 24 hours.
Do let me know if you have read this one or if you are planning to read it any time soon. I guess I will go back to the series sometime soon and start again with the first Robert Langdon book, as I enjoyed them all big time, but this one somehow didn’t work for me at all.
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