Frenzy over Brown’s new book

Booksellers are expecting major sales as Dan Brown unleashes his code breaker Robert Langdon back into the literary world today.

Brown’s latest novel, Inferno, is expected to be among the biggest selling books of the year.

Langdon, the lead character from Brown’s previous three thrillers, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol returns in a book set in Florence and centred on a part of Italian poet Dante’s epic poem Divine Comedy.

Publishers Random House said there is “huge anticipation” for the new book, which will be published globally in hardcover, ebook, and on audio CD.

Hollywood actor Tom Hanks has played Langdon’s character in 2006 adaptation of The Da Vinci Code followed by Angels and Demons in the year 2009. He is set to play the role again in the film adaptation of Brown’s last Langdon book The Lost Symbol which is reportedly in pre-production.

Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust before the world is irrevocably altered.

“With this new novel, I am excited to take readers on a journey deep into this mysterious realm... a landscape of codes, symbols, and more than a few secret passageways,” Brown had earlier said in a statement.

Brown said he had studied Dante’s Inferno in school, but said that “it wasn’t until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of his work on the modern world”.