Dan Brown's 'The Secret of Secrets' Offers Familiar Tropes with Uneven Results

Imagine a smart detective named Robert Langdon who loves solving puzzles.

He goes to a beautiful old city called Prague with his friend, a scientist who studies how our minds work.

She's going to give a talk about amazing things our brains can do, but then something bad happens!

Her host is murdered, and she disappears.

Robert has to hurry through the city, following clues to figure out who did it and why.

It's like a treasure hunt with big secrets about the world and what people are capable of.

But, even though it's exciting, it feels a bit like stories we've heard before.