As a bit of a palate cleanser after my push through read with “Born of Blood and Ash” by Jennifer L. Armentrout, I decided to pick up Dan Brown’s “The Secret of Secrets”. My partner grabbed it for me on a whim, he remembered that I read the “Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons”, and that I loved them! He was especially keen to grab it as it’s the first book in eight years that Dan Brown had published, even my mother was keen to her hands on it!

As always, a heads up that there are a few spoilers in this post, you have been warned!

Same as with his previous books, this novel is centred on his protagonist Robert Langdon, a renowned professor on Symbology, and his love interest Katherine Solomon, a noetic scientist. This whole book was focused on the concept of consciousness, similar to his previous book “Origin” (based on what my mother told me, I personally haven’t read it) but unlike his previous books which had a very heavy emphasis on religious concepts. This novel focuses mainly on how Kathrine’s experiments had successfully established a new definition and understanding of what consciousness is and what it looks like compared to the modern world’s current understanding of consciousness. This understanding is explained throughout the book as Langdon has flashbacks during his various near death experiences and attempts to escape his perceived enemies, as flashbacks of his conversations with Katherine about her work before she publishes it for the world to see. Obviously, someone does not want her work published, or there wouldn’t be a book!

The reader gains the POV of Langdon, his publisher Jonas who agrees to publish Katherine’s book (which is why he gets caught up in the mayhem), the US Ambassador in Prague, a man named Finch who seems to be running the mayhem in Prague, Katherine and a character known only as The Golem. It’s very typical of Dan Brown to have these multiple POVs in his book, but each POV provides elements of the story to help the reader work out what the mystery is and what role each character plays within that mystery.

So, this is what we have: someone wants to stop Katherine’s book from being published. She goes missing in Prague, Langdon is trying to find her but in true Dan Brown style he gets dragged into an investigation with a hard headed detective who sees him as a suspect and potential criminal mastermind rather than a naive professor trying to find his missing love. The US embassy appears to be trying to help Langdon but there are some major ulterior motives happening, poor Jonas’ servers get hacked and he gets dragged into this whole mess back in New York, there’s a man named Finch who seems to be running the show BUT not all is what it seems, especially when it comes to a young woman named Sasha who is prone to seizures, and then there’s The Golem who seems to a villain but might actually be more of a anti-hero type character. Oh, and of course there’s a few murders, conspiracies, arrests, threats, political espionage and an explosion.

All-in-all, it was a great read and I loved the mystery and the conspiracy theories that popped up, the only downside was the science speak. Normally I don’t have an issue with it and am mostly engaged with it, but the parts of the book that was explaining the science on occasion was too heavy with the scientific terminology and it went over my head. But, like I said, great read and I really enjoyed it, especially the surprise at the end when everything is explained.