I read somewhere recently that copies of Dan Brown’s new novel, The Lost Symbol, which drops tomorrow like it’s hot, were being kept in some kind of giant cage, the door of which was secured by two different locks, and no one knew the combo to both locks. I’m not kidding.

Well, Janet Maslin found a way into the cage! Or — less fun — maybe the Times just ignored the publisher’s embargo. Either way, Maslin’s review is in today’s paper. If you care, she says the book is “impossible to put down.” I’ll likely solve this problem by not picking it up in the first place.

. . . the author uses so many italics that even brilliant experts wind up sounding like teenage girls. And Mr. Brown would face an interesting creative challenge if the phrases “What the hell…?,” “Who the hell … ?” and “Why the hell … ?” were made unavailable to him. The surprises here are so fast and furious that those phrases get quite the workout.