Deja vu thriller slow off blocks

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THE LOST SYMBOL
By Dan Brown
Bantam, $60

Among literary types it's hardly the done thing to admit to liking Dan Brown's writing. After all, novels that are so commercial that every second person on a plane is reading one couldn't possibly have any merit could they? But I'm not going to bag The Da Vinci Code. With its dizzying cliffhangers, pacey chase sequences, ancient puzzles and conspiracies, I thought it was a winning formula. And about 82 million readers agreed.

Brown's latest effort, however, is a different story. Or rather, it is almost exactly the same story arranged differently. The villain is a tattooed hulk rather than an albino monk. Instead of the secret brotherhood of Opus Dei, we have the secret brotherhood of Freemasons. There is a trail of clues leading to a centuries-old secret. There is murder and mayhem. And tweedy symbologist Robert Langdon in a helter skelter race against time, accompanied by a brainy female accomplice.

The story opens with Langdon summoned to Washington to help an old friend, whose keynote speaker has dropped out at the last minute. It's a fiendish trick, of course, and Langdon arrives at the Capitol Building to find his friend's severed hand, tattooed with symbols and artfully arranged in the middle of the Rotunda. Unwittingly, the loafer-clad academic has strolled into a plot dreamed up by a man who calls himself Mal'akh.

This shaven-headed, castrated freak has infiltrated the Freemasons in a bid to discover the lost wisdom of the ages. He seeks the mythical Masonic Pyramid that reveals where the Ancient Mysteries are buried. Once he finds the hiding place of mankind's greatest treasure, he believes he will turn from a man into a god. Langdon's bid to foil him takes more than 500 pages that are laced with every talisman, myth and symbol Brown could muster and dotted with his signature indigestible lumps of historical research.

The biggest problem with The Lost Symbol is that it takes so long to heat up. Things don't really get exciting until you're about 150 pages in. Until then, Brown is busy setting up his story and outlining its philosophies. There is the scientist who has discovered the true power of human thought, the arcane rituals of the Freemasons, plus symbols and numerology everywhere Langdon casts his eyes - when what the reader really needs to get them hooked is a good old-fashioned car chase.

It comes eventually. And once The Lost Symbol's pages start turning more easily you forget the corniness of Brown's prose (Langdon "smiles softly", he feels "stabs of anger" and there are constant "chuckles") as you're seduced by the labyrinthine puzzle.

Brown is a master when it comes to the big tease. He knows how to string out his secrets and twist his plot. As a reader, you're aware you're being played but somehow you don't mind so long as the ride is entertaining.

A vast amount of research has gone into this book and there are some genius moments where nothing is what it seems. Ultimately though, The Last Symbol is the sickly twin of The Da Vinci Code. As much as he tries to beef up Washington's atmosphere with secret passageways and underground tunnels, it can't compete with Paris. There's a sense of deja vu about so much of the plot. And the whole fandangle could have been at least 100 pages shorter. Even Brown seems to recognise that - at one point during the denouement one of the pivotal characters apologises for rambling on.

If you're a fan of Brown's hybrid of thriller and treasure hunt then you're going to read this book anyway. It may be a pleasant enough way to get through a long plane journey or a rainy weekend. But if you didn't go crazy for The Da Vinci Code then don't bother with this one. I've read it so you don't have to.