Dan Brown returns to Da Vinci decoder for new novel Origin

Tom Hanks is to return as Robert Langdon in the big screen adaptation of Dan Brown’s latest novel.

Robert Langdon, the Harvard 'symbologist' who has solved four previous mysteries, will make his fifth outing in the hugely popular series in September 2017

Dan Brown's Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon will dust off his tweed jacket and charcoal turtleneck and throw himself into another "earth-shaking" mystery in the bestselling author's forthcoming novel Origin, his publishers announced on Wednesday.

Out on 26 September 2017, Origin follows Brown's other Langdon thrillers: The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, The Lost Symbol and Inferno. It will be written, said his publishers, in keeping with Brown's "trademark style" and sees the author interweaving "codes, science, religion, history, art and architecture".

"Origin thrusts Harvard symbologist Langdon into the dangerous intersection of humankind's two most enduring questions, and the earth-shaking discovery that will answer them," said his publishers Doubleday in the US and Transworld in the UK, in a note about the novel's plot that is as cryptic as some of the mysteries Langdon has solved in the past.

According to Brown's publishers, there are more than 200m copies of his books in print worldwide. The Bookseller said that Brown has sold 16m print books in the UK, with The Da Vinci Code alone racking up sales of 4.5m copies. The most recent Langdon title, 2013's Inferno, sold more than 1.6m copies in the UK, with combined hardback and paperback sales. A film adaptation of Inferno, starring Tom Hanks as Langdon, is due out shortly.

"Over the past 15 years, it has been an utter privilege to publish Dan Brown's unique blend of electrifying storytelling, historical reinterpretation and genius code-making," said the author's long-term UK editor Bill Scott-Kerr at Transworld. "The fact that there is to be another instalment in this record-breaking run of books will be hugely exciting to his millions of fans around the world and gives us in the publishing world another extraordinary event to look forward to next year."

Fiction buyer at Waterstones, Chris White said: "EL James, Harper Lee and JK Rowling have all released new books over the course of the last year so I guess it was inevitable that a new Dan Brown would appear soon enough to complete the quartet of megasellers. Nobody does thrills, spills and conspiracy theories like Dan Brown and the reading public's appetite for Origin will, I'm sure, remain as keen as ever."

- theguardian