This is definitely one of those "Your mileage may vary" books. If you can completely suspend disbelief and just go along for an entertaining ride, then you'll probably enjoy this one.

There is no doubt that Brown excels at slowly unraveling a plot thread -- giving the reader only little bits of what is going on and artfully keeping the reader in complete suspense. Unfortunately, knowing Brown's style and character usage tendencies, you can actually guess how the plot unfolds fairly accurately. The Lost Symbol deals with the beliefs and legends surrounding the Freemasons, all centered around Washington, DC., and managing to get the entire plot done in essentially one night. (I would have given this book two stars, but since I lived in DC for a couple of years, it was more fun because I had a real life frame of reference). The "rabbit out of the hat" moment was a bit anticlimactic, and I was left thinking, "Really? All that work for that?"

However, we now come to the main problem: I could not suspend my disbelief enough to really enjoy this book. I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code much more because I was able to accept for the sake of the story the premise Brown was weaving his story around. In the Lost Symbol, he attempts to weave ancient mysticism with cutting edge science which fell extremely flat with me. It's not completely central to the story either, but he dedicates enough pages to it that it hard to just simply glance over.

My only other overall complaint was how formulaic everything seemed. OK we get it, words have multiple meanings, many people assume the worst, and symbols can be looked upside down to reveal something new. I hope Brown steps out of this track next time, because despite the flaws, he is still a very good pulling the thread.