DAN BROWN REVEALS THE SECRET ... OF HYPE

       The books are under guard, the plot is a secret, the author is silent, but all that will change today when Dan Brown's latest conspiracy potboiler, "The Lost Symbol", is unleashed.
       Extraordinary measures have been taken to keep the sequel to 2003 mega-hit "The Da Vinci Code" under wraps, right down to posting guards in book warehouses.
       But much as in Brown's tangled - some say nonsensical - plots about secret societies, the Catholic Church, and symbologist Robert Langdon, not everything is as it seems.
       The secretive treatment is all part of a huge publicity campaign as Doubleday's publishers try to repeat the success of "Code", which sold a record 80 million copies.
       Five million copies have been printed and, in a bold step, an e-version of the novel is also being released today. Pre-sales rocketed "The Lost Symbol" to the top of Amazon's best-seller list.
       Expect a PR blitz starting today, including a rare appearance by the reclusive American writer on American television's "Today Show."
       Staff of the show report that anyone coming into contact with the book at Doubleday has had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, while copies of the finished product are literally under lock and key.
       "We have closed-circuit TVs that are monitoring the books at all times in a secure area that is also guarded," said Jacqueline Updike at Random House, Doubleday's partent company.
       The cover of the book, third in a series featuring Langdon, shows the US Capitol in Washington and a wax seal containing a double-headed phoenix, the numeral 33, and the words ordo ae chao, Latin for "order to chaos."
       The design supports rumours that Freemasons are at the heart of the story.
       But beyond these titbits, and the revelation by Brown's editor Jason Kaufman that the narrative takes place in a 12-hour period, almost nothing is known.
       Speculation, fuelled by specially seeded cluses, is raging on Facebook, Twitter and Widget accounts linked to the book and author.
       However, the clues were reportedly concocted by employees who didn't actually read the book, and are therefore of limited value.
       "Felled in 6 days at a church of sound," a recent Twitter entry said. "At the head of the Niagra, Parade of Dark Horses."
       Similarly, the author's website provides only the barest biographical information. Instead, you're invited to play "the symbol quest", a guessing game in which esoteric symbols are fit in a compass-like circle.
       If Brown's financial success is predicatable, so is the reaction his new work is likely to provoke.
       Serious literary critics have long been horrified by what they consider Brown's appalling writing. Salman Rushdie famously said "The Da Vinci Code" is "a novel so bad that it gives bad novels and a bad name."
       The Vatican accused the "Code" land its multitude of spin-offs, including a popular film starring Tom Hanks, of anti-Catholic prejudice.