Da Vinci Code was history's secrets, Angels and Demons was those of Rome in particular of Vatican, Digital Fortress about IT and coding and security, Deception Point about science. In this one Brown uses the same murder thriller format yet again to unveil some secrets and mysteries from ancient times until now, most hidden in plain sight.
Washington D. C. was named Rome by those that planned and settled it, and until the names were changed Potomac (which reverted to the original name) was called Tiber. Freemasons wished and planned for a glorious future for humanity and the architecture of the city holds their dreams in various symbols.
From this grand enough beginning explored throughout the book Brown connects today's latest science research to the most ancient secrets and far more, to a basic 101 beginner's discourse on spirituality. A good one too. He also manages to subtly albeit clearly bring out the distance and contradiction that has arisen between religion and spirituality, the power brokering by institutionalised religion, and so forth, and states it plainly too, not leaving it for surmise.
Most thrilling part on physical level, satisfactorily resolved, is the victim and killer in the dark vault with neither able to see the other, both using mind and other inputs to escape and kill respectively. Most horrifying, the death of our favourite Langdon by drowning towards the end. One wonders how Brown will write anything else interesting without him. But Brown surprises one.
These are some of the books I read during last half a century or so, and some of the thoughts, questions, reactions and insights, emotions - and so forth -, evoked on reading them, either then or later sometime during the interim years and decades, or even thinking over now, that are summed up here while trying to record my impressions about what I read.
Serene, Reflecting
Life Recedes