Origin

Fans of bestseller Brown’s novels featuring Robert Langdon will probably enjoy the Harvard “symbology” professor’s fifth outing, but those who expect coherence in their thrillers will be disappointed. Langdon, last seen in 2013’s Inferno, visits the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, to hear a lecture by Edmond Kirsch, a former student of his who’s now a “billionaire computer scientist, futurist, inventor, and entrepreneur.” Kirsch promises in the buildup to his lecture to answer the questions, “Where do we come from? Where are we going?” Those answers, the reader is repeatedly told, will shatter the foundations of the world’s religions. When evil doers thwart Kirsch’s efforts to disseminate this great news, Langdon goes on the run, accompanied by Ambra Vidal, the stunningly beautiful director of the Guggenheim Museum, on a mission to find those responsible and to share Kirsch’s discovery with the world. The answers to Kirsch’s fundamental questions come as a letdown. Brown promises much but delivers little. Agent: Heide Lange, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Oct.)