Have you read «Da Vinci Code»? Then you will be happy to plunge into another Dan Brown’s masterpiece. it’s no less interesting, so will be good to get acquainted with this brilliant author for the first time as well.
With the main character of the book, Robert Langdon, you will live in Washington D.C. for 12 hours, and during this time experience many things and survive in breathtaking adventures. You will not forget it, I bet.
Mr. Langdon gets an invitation to read a lecture in National Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. He thinks it is from his friend and mentor, Mason Peter Solomon, the head of the Smithsonian Institution. He goes there, but no one waits for him in the Capitol, no people, but he finds an awful thing - right hand of Solomon! It is tattooed into a Hand of the Mysteries, a strong symbol, and made pointing upwards to the inside of the Capitol dome, to fresco The Apotheosis of Washington. Who has done that? Cruel Mal'akh, he wants Langdon to solve the Ancient Mysteries, then he promises to let kidnapped Solomon free. The game starts, it will take you and the smart scientist to many museums. But you are not alone, Solomon’s sister Katherine enters the game on your side. It’s very good, she will be of use, as the girl studies noetic science in a secret laboratory in the Smithsonian Museum Support Center. But on the other part Mal’akh is not alone as well, he is accompanied by Inoue Sato, the head of the CIA's Office of Security. These two villains have different goals: Sato wants Robert to unlock the Mysteries in the honor of national security, while Mal’akh is eager to reveal the video of authorities taking part in Masonic rituals. Finding clues and solving puzzles together with Robert and Katherine, you will find yourself in the basements of such famous monuments of history and architecture as the Capitol, the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, the Library of Congress, Botanical Garden and Washington National Cathedral. Haven’t you dreamed about that?..
All clues lead to small stone pyramid that Solomon gave Langdon a few years ago. In it and the box that holds it our characters find puzzles involving a Masonic cipher, a circumpunct, an alchemical formula and references to the 1514 engraving Melencolia I. Mal’akh manages to catch Katherine and Robert and torture them… but they are lucky, being rescued by the CIA. In the meanwhile at the top floor of the Masonic headquarters House of the Temple Mal’akh tells Peter a stunning true – he is his son, Zachary! Being young he didn’t like the way Peter treated him and made it so that everyone believed he died in Turkish prison. Then he discovered in himself the need to transform into a Godlike being. For that he wants to re-create Bible and follow the story of Abraham almost killing his son – he almost persuades Peter to kill him with a knife of Freemasons. But Langdon gets there on time and CIA helicopter with him. The later disables Zachary's laptop with a targeted EMP pulse and prevents the distribution of the video. Zachary is killed when helicopter incidentally makes a skylight fall upon him…
At the end Solomon takes Robert to Washington Monument and reveals him the truth: the secret Zachary was looking for is hidden in sacred books like the Bible and Koran and it states that people are not God’s subjects. In fact we all have the chance and ability to be gods ourselves.