Just read Dan Brown’s The Secret of Secrets. The last Dan Brown book I read was Origin in 2018. It has been a long while since I have read a thriller. Most of my readings in recent years have been fantasy, and those can be quite slow to get into.
The Secret of Secrets was a fun read. Spoilers ahead.
First, I want to discuss how the structure of this book differs from that of his other Robert Langdon books. Usually, the entire story is one big mystery to solve or one person to save, but here, I can break the book into two parts: the first part is finding Katherine, and the second is saving Sasha. The finding Katherine section of the book also resolves the mortal threat Langdon faces from the Czech police. The discovery of the golem’s identity, the uncovering of the Threshold project, and the thwarting of the CIA’s plans are subsumed by the saving Sasha section.
Second, the use of identity merger as a resolution device: in the end it is revealed that the golem and Sasha are the same being (albeit with different conscious identities). How often do we see this? Just looking at Harry Potter, this device has been used in 4 of the books: Quirrell and Voldemort in book 1, Tom Riddle and Voldemort in book 2, Peter Pettigrew and Scabbers in book 3, and Snape and the Half-Blood Prince in book 6.
And lastly, I want to talk about Katherine Solomon. We have seen her in The Lost Symbol. Yet, none of those events were even hinted at in this book. We have some college romance between her and Langdon being the foundation of their relationship instead of the life and death scenario they had gone through. Seems like an unnecessary retcon. For someone with eidetic memory, Langdon sure forgets his past relationships quite readily.