Nothing's lost on Dan Brown as long-awaited 'Symbol' arrives

NEW YORK — The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's thriller to be released Tuesday — his first since 2003's The Da Vinci Code— includes a scene that Brown says came from his own life.
In the new novel, Brown's recurring hero, Harvard professor Robert Langdon, is recognized by a fan who tells him: "My book group read your book about the sacred feminine and the church! What a delicious scandal that one caused! You do enjoy putting the fox in the henhouse!"

Langdon, who in Brown's fiction writes non-fiction books about symbols and religion, replies, "Scandal wasn't really my intention."

Is that a reference to Da Vinci, which has sold 80 million copies worldwide, and was driven by the idea that the Vatican covered up Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene?

"Of course," Brown says and laughs.

Three years ago, facing a British copyright infringement suit over The Da Vinci Code (decided in his favor), Brown says a woman recognized him, and used that phrase: "Putting the fox in the henhouse."

He replied the way Langdon does in the novel. But if scandal isn't his intention, what is?

"To mix facts into a fictional setting and get readers to ask questions about what they believe. But to make it fun to read. Someone said it's like eating vegetables that taste like ice cream. That's a little simplistic."

Brown's thrillers are anything but simplistic. The Lost Symbol, a 509-page puzzle, is set in modern-day Washington, D.C.

It's driven by a Masonic legend: hidden in the nation's capital is a map or portal that leads to a body of secret knowledge, that as Langdon puts it, "allegedly enables its practitioners to access powerful abilities that lie dormant in the human mind."

The map may not literally be a map. And for much of the novel, it's not clear what's real and what's metaphorical symbolism.

But with a first printing of 5 million copies, there's no doubt that Symbol promises to be the publishing event of 2009.

Brown says he knew he had to do two things to appeal to his fans: "They had to immediately know they were back in Langdon's world, but that the story was fresh."