The Lost Symbol

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon agrees to do a favor for his old friend, Smithsonian Museum director Peter Solomon, by giving a lecture in the Capitol rotunda when the scheduled speaker cancels at the last minute.  But when he gets there he finds he has been brought to Washington on false pretenses, his good friend is in considerable danger, a very scary lady from the CIA is demanding his help on an unspecified matter of national security, and somehow the Freemasons are mixed up in it all in ways that could cause worldwide political and economic disaster.

I wasn't first in line to read this book when it came out a while ago, but I always figured I'd get to it.  I quite liked The Da Vinci Code, though I wasn't as bowled over by it as a lot of people seemed to be; possibly because I'd already heard of the theory about what the Holy Grail really was.  I thought it was an acceptably entertaining potboiler, and that's pretty much what this one is too.  Some of the predicaments Langdon gets into are genuinely thrilling, and I'll probably go see the movie when they make one.