'The Lost Symbol' is found . . . wanting

If you are looking for a reason not to buy Dan Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol, all you need to do is read Maureen Dowd's devastating pan in this weekend's New York Times Book Review.

Brown's previous knuckle-dragging potboiler, The Da Vinci Code, persuaded me that he is the reincarnation of another blockbuster-bestselling author, Robert James Waller, the fellow who wrote The Bridges of Madison County (1992) and later spilled several more drums of the literary equivalent of methyl-ethyl bad shit.

Of course Mr. Brown, like Mr. Waller in his day, is keeping the long-ailing book publishing industry alive. Argh.