So in between the places where the characters' hearts pound (or their pulses quicken or their adrenaline surges), Brown pauses to drop in explanations of art, architecture, history and science that he said he spent a year reading up on before he started writing.Īs in some of his earlier books, Brown uses a conservative Catholic sect as a plot element in 'Origin.” This time it's something called the Palmarian Church, headed by an 'antipope.” The Brown formula also means plots that are contained in a 24-hour period, with short chapters (105 spread over 461 pages in 'Origin”), typically ending in cliffhangers.īut Brown also aspires to write 'the thriller as academic lecture.” printing of 2 million copies, 'Origin” (Doubleday, $30) combines all the elements of the Dan Brown formula that has sold more than 200 million books and has been translated into 56 languages: codes, puzzles, treasure hunts, secretive organizations and didactic explanations of obscure facts. Happily, they have the best ally a thriller hero could have: an artificially intelligent digital helper named Winston, a 'Siri on steroids” capable of booking escapes on private jets without security screening.
Langdon and Vidal decide they must find the 47-character password that will unlock Kirsch's discovery while trying to stay out the clutches of the shadowy killers trying to keep it secret. Add your contacts.īefore you can say secret conspiracy, Langdon is racing around Spain in the company of the 'spectacularly beautiful” Ambra Vidal, who also happens to be the museum director and the fiancee to the next king of Spain. You will begin to receive our weekly Hoopla Events updates. But the billionaire is assassinated before he can reveal what he's found. In Brown's telling, Kirsch's answer threatens to render all religions into myths as obsolete as Zeus. The book kicks off with Langdon present at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, when tech billionaire Edmond Kirsch prepares to announce a scientific breakthrough that will answer man's 'universal mysteries”: Where do we come from and where are we going? It's the fifth thriller to star Robert Langdon, the tweedy but dashing Harvard professor of 'symbology and religious iconology,” who was played by Tom Hanks in the movie adaptations. Zeus has been a muse of sorts for Brown's latest book, 'Origin.” 'He sits on my desk for eight hours a day when I'm writing.” When my suitcase comes out, he actually gets quite upset,” Brown said of Zeus. It's true that the god that watches over Brown as he writes is actually a cat, a massive orange and white tabby that adopted Brown after it wandered over from the neighbor's house near Portsmouth, N.H., five years ago and never left.īut ancient Egyptians once revered cats as demigods, and since then, cats like Zeus have never let Brown and the rest of us forget it.
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