The Lost Symbol

The new novel by the great Dan Brown is finally out! Check this sneak peek:

Langdon is a professor of "symbology." (Brown says there's no such academic field. "The closest is symbiotics.") He becomes entangled in a search for a madman who has kidnapped Langdon's mentor, Peter Solomon, director of the Smithsonian Institution.

The madman offers clues, starting with Solomon's severed hand, left on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda. His fingertips, tattooed with Masonic symbols, point up to the ceiling and an actual 1865 painting of George Washington as a god.

Washington, like most of the Founding Fathers, was a member of the Freemasons, the secretive and mysterious fraternal order.

Citing national security, the CIA gets involved for reasons that aren't explained until Chapter 117.

More clues are found throughout Washington, including Melencolia I, a 1514 engraving by Albrecht Dürer in the National Gallery. As Langdon explains, "The symbolism in Melencolia I is so complex it makes Leonardo da Vinci look overt."

taken from: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-09-14-dan-brown-lost-symbol_N.htm?csp=34