Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown releases latest thriller The Secret Of Secrets

PARIS – Best-selling American author Dan Brown, creator of the publishing phenomenon The Da Vinci Code (2003), released his latest thriller on Sept 9 in 16 languages simultaneously.

The Secret Of Secrets, which runs to nearly 700 pages in English, marks Brown’s return eight years after his last novel, Origin (2017).

Brown, 61, called The Secret Of Secrets “by far the most intricately plotted and ambitious novel I’ve written to date”.

Mr Nihar Malaviya, chief executive of publisher Penguin Random House Global, said in a statement: “The hallmarks of Dan’s books – codes, art, history, religion and cutting-edge science – are on full display alongside a propulsive plot.”

Publishers, printers and translators worked in secrecy and with strict confidentiality clauses to prevent leaks in the run-up to the release.

Brown began a month-long promotional tour on Sept 9 in New York that will take him to 12 countries.

The New York Times was broadly positive in a review published on Sept 9, while noting that its “hyperactive plotting runs on hyperventilating prose”.

Britain’s The Guardian newspaper called it “weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end”.

After two little-noticed early books, Brown, a discreet American high school teacher, became one of the world’s best-selling authors in 2003 with The Da Vinci Code.

With a complex plot revolving around the supposed descendants of Jesus, the Mona Lisa and freemasonry, the novel won him millions of fans but also criticism from scholars who said his works were riddled with errors and nonsense.

The Da Vinci Code was made into a 2006 movie of the same name starring American actor Tom Hanks and grossed more than US$760 million globally. 

Penguin Random House says Brown has sold more than 250 million copies in 56 languages. AFP