The Lost Symbol lost me

Like so many (millions of?) other people, I enjoyed Dan Brown's first book, The Da Vinci Code.  I did read another of his, probably his second, but was disappointed.  It was the last couple of chapters that did it, when the whole thing became just a tad too much like a James Bond story.  I had read no more of Brown's work until I picked up The Lost Symbol, thinking to give him another chance.  I shouldn't have bothered.

The main character is the world's leading symbologist, Harvard professor Robert Langdon, who appeared in The Da Vinci Code.  Langdon is summoned to Washington by a close friend, who happens to be one of the world's richest men as well as a leading Freemason.  The story then becomes submerged in almost forgotten and equally unknown tunnels beneath the Capitol building with excursions to a highly secret laboratory.  Unfortunately, Langdon is one of the few characters in whom I found myself able to believe, most of the others being too rich, too intelligent or too evil.  For my taste the plot is too surreal, almost fantasy.

I reached page 173 before giving up - and it took me a week to get that far - so I think I gave the book a fair crack.  Sorry, Dan, but it's not for me and, as I didn't reach the end, I can only rate it as one star - despite it being number one in the charts.