Set in Washington D.C., Dan Brown’s newest super-novel The Lost Symbol uncovers the ghastly truth of America’s history: OMG, the Founding Fathers were Freemasons and so are a bunch of theother important politicians nowadays; Benjamin Franklin was an astrologer and alchemist; and oh noes, America wasn’t founded on Christian principles, but rather on Deist ideals. Oh and there’s lots of Roman and Greek idolatry to be found in our nation’s capital (and Capitol).

It was pretty easy for me to stay ahead of some of the plot points–yeah, I guessed the antagonist’s real identity with no trouble–and knew a few other things, mainly because I have read esoteric stuff for ages, but all in all its a fun, though thin read, with lots of visual puzzles, maps, magic squares, wrong turns and dead ends to keep readers guessing (what do Newton’s temperature scale and your spinal column have in common?), though the "Oh wait, it’s not really this, it’s that!" exposition did get a wee bit tiresome.

Plus everyone knows that if you tell a bad guy what he wants to know, he’s just gonna kill you anyway, so next time you’re face down over a pool of ethanol, just lie about your PIN number and save us a lot of trouble. And a couple things were just effing ridiculous (a guy with his hand freshly chopped just hours before off traipsing about D.C. giving a guided tour), but again, it was overall a fun read that is sure ot provoke lots of water cooler conversation.

Some Bible interpretations will piss off fundies, but that’s part of Brown’s agenda–to inform people of all sorts of nifty occult and art history trivia, and let them know there’s more to religion than just one path.

Brown’s book is also designed as a guidebook to Washington D.C. and hopefully will encourage a boom in tourism like one Paris, LOndon and Scotland experienced after  The Da Vinci Code exploded.

Brown draws a lot from Manly P Hall’s books  Secret Teachings of All Ages and The Secret Destiny of America, and  actually doesn’t diss Aleister Crowley, so that makes him okay by me.

And yes, you do learn the lost secret word of Masonry, which actually isn’t that much of surprise…I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s not "rosebud"!