Fact Czech-ing
The Secret of Secrets
Dan Brown (Bantam, £25)
AFTER Rome, Paris, Washington DC, Florence and Barcelona, it’s Prague’s turn to backdrop a cerebral caper starring Robert Langdon. So, we can expect Kafka and the Golem to figure? Of course! The Harvard don is soon being interrogated about a mysterious offence, while a man cosplaying the clay monster starts roaming the Czech capital causing mayhem.
Staple features of the previous five books are gratifyingly present and correct. Langdon again hurtles around solving riddles and spewing exposition to a female sidekick. Key scenes take place at tourist sites, always introduced by gobbets from guidebooks (or possibly AI). The action unfolds in a single city – as in all the series except, interestingly, The Da Vinci Code – and during a single day.