Volkswacht Bodensee - 'Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown releases latest thriller

"The Secret of Secrets", which runs to nearly 700 pages in English, marks Brown's return eight years after his last novel, "Origin".

Brown called it "by far the most intricately plotted and ambitious novel I've written to date."

"The hallmarks of Dan's books -- codes, art, history, religion, and cutting-edge science –- are on full display alongside a propulsive plot," the CEO of publisher Penguin Random House Global, Nihar Malaviya, said in a statement.

Publishers, printers and translators worked in secrecy and with strict confidentiality clauses to prevent leaks in the run up to the release.

Brown, 61, is set to begin a month-long promotional tour on Tuesday in New York that will take him to 12 countries.

The New York Times was broadly positive in a review published Tuesday, while noting that its "hyperactive plotting runs on hyperventilating prose".

Britain's The Guardian newspaper called it "weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end".

After two little-noticed early books, the discreet American high school teacher became one of the world's best-selling authors in 2003 with "The Da Vinci Code".

With a complex plot revolving around the supposed descendants of Jesus, the Mona Lisa and freemasonry, the novel won him millions of fans but also criticism from scholars who said his works were riddled with errors and nonsense.

US publisher Penguin Random House says Brown has sold more than 250 million copies in 56 languages.

H.Weber--VB