Literary Junk Food: A Review of Dan Brown’s Newest Book “The Secret of Secrets”
Dan Brown’s newest novel, “The Secret of Secrets,” which was released in August 2025, reads differently to different audiences. First-time readers will likely find Brown’s consistently detailed, informative and fast-paced writing exhilarating. However, someone who has read one of Brown’s books (or even watched Tom Hanks in the movie adaptations of “Angels & Demons,” “The Da Vinci Code” or “Inferno”) will likely be bored by the “Secret of Secrets,” leaving them wishing the novel were 300 pages shorter.
Dan Brown, despite being a talented writer, rests on his haunches with his tried and true formula. Brown centers each of his novels around Robert Langdon, a lovable, world-renowned religious symbologist. After introducing Langdon, Brown places him in a prominent, vibrant city such as Paris, Venice or Barcelona. Brown then immerses the reader in the hum of the city by including modern attractions, historical landmarks and even local cuisine. Then a “secret” is introduced. Langdon is invited to an event exposing him to a cutting edge technology or an artifact shrouded in history that will change the face of the world as we know it. Then, by chance, shadowy criminals appear in that very same city. These criminals leverage the cutting edge research or centuries old myth and create havoc in hopes of becoming extremely wealthy. Of course, Robert Langdon is the only one who can stop the deviants. Robert Langdon swiftly dashes off to thwart the evildoers, with a beautiful woman by his side. Rinse, wash, repeat.
In “The Secret of Secrets,” Dan Brown’s latest iteration of his formula, Robert Langdon travels to Prague to watch his new beau, Katherine Solomon, present her groundbreaking work on human consciousness. However, the heartfelt moment is quickly squashed when tragedy strikes, and Katherine and her book go missing. Langdon catapults into action to track down the woman he cares for and her magnum opus before they fall into the wrong hands.
When you open the inside cover of “The Secret of Secrets,”a creamy black and white map of Prague unfolds. I once heard that any book with a map is a good book, since the author’s fictional world is so realistic that you need a map to navigate it. “The Secret of Secrets” supports this theory, as Brown’s detailed prose transports the reader to modern-day Prague. You discover the city as the characters do, feeling the rough-hewn stone castles crumbling as you brush past, inhaling the warm scent of books as you look up at soaring library shelves and marveling as costumed spirit characters roam the street in broad daylight, placing the city in a liminal space between the physical and spiritual world. However, the texture that adds richness to the book often gets in the way of the plot. I often found myself wanting Brown to cut the description so I could return to Langdon’s high-speed chase.
When Brown is not getting bogged down by details, his plotlines always fly. In “The Secret of Secrets,” he makes surprising choices with his side characters, which keep the story lively. These characters, including a vindictive, corrupt policemen, suspicious hotel clerks and high-ranking government officials thicken the plot. As the reader, you learn not to trust anyone, as Langdon’s allies become adversaries and his foes become friends. Once Langdon defeats one adversary, a new opponent immediately materializes to further complicate his mission. Typical heist motifs, such as ticking time bombs, high-speed car chases, hulking henchmen chasing them down the streets of Prague and explosions ruffling out behind the protagonists as they flee the scene in the nick of time, combine to keep the reader excited.
Despite adding some excitement, Brown’s narrative tricks are not an adequate replacement for substantial plot development. In fact, the book’s constant twists and turns and perspective shifts eventually leave the reader dizzy and take away from the storyline. Despite reading and rereading sections to calibrate where I was in the story, I was often lost as to who was speaking and what their internal monologue added to the overall plot. Brown writes action in a way that propels you to read faster, but his twists, turns and additional details leave you confused on how you got there.
I want to give Dan Brown credit where credit is due: In spite of the book’s narrative shortcomings, and my own complaints of the repetitiveness, Brown makes complex scientific ideas digestible and interesting. “The Secret of Secrets” covers a wide range of topics that the common reader is not exposed to, including advanced noetic study of human consciousness, mysticism, physics, chemistry, optical illusions, brain structure and cutting-edge technology. Brown turns lofty theoretical ideas into practical, implementable principles. To give you the SparkNotes, Brown turns soft sciences and hard sciences into fun science.
For first time Dan Brown readers, “The Secret of Secrets” will be a home run, despite its rambling prose and overwrought structure. As a Dan Brown fan, “The Secret of Secrets” is literary junk food — predictable, comforting, fast, delicious and not pretentious. But, like a junk food binge, “The Secret of Secrets”left me regretting my choices. Instead of a stomach ache, I was left mourning the time I invested to finish this book. Hopefully, in his next book, Brown will venture beyond his literary comfort zone so his new release will not end up as 30% off at Barnes and Noble. 6.5/10 stars.
Photo Caption: Walking Across Charles Bridge in Prague
Photo Credit: Roberto Gennero / Istock
