Guilty pleasure this one. Don’t know about you, but I can’t resist the odd commercial humdinger book. It’s the usual plot, Robert Langdon takes his eidetic memory off on a jaunt to solve a riddle filled with symbolic meanings and conspiracy theories, together with an intelligent and beautiful companion. Nuff said, really.
After ex-student and friend Edmond Kirsch, is spectacularly killed at a global presentation before he can reveal a scientific truth that will expose all religions as irrelevant, Langdon sets off around Spain (with the future queen of Spain in tow) to find the code that will unlock the truth. There are mysterious forces trying to stop them…
This time we are treated to a run-through of the greats of modern art, heavily focussed on Gaudi, Barcelona’s art hero. It is neatly done, although at times I did feel Dan Brown had turned into a virtual tour-guide. Finally we end up at the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's iconic and as yet unfinished Cathedral. There is an absence of that gruesome violence that often forms the central plot. In fact the quest is an intellectual conundrum, ‘Where do humans come from, and where are we going to?’ Through his characters Dan Brown addresses some of the toughest questions of today, using existing scientific theory to pose the question of one possible future. He comes up with some startling answers
