Lucy Vickery

Brown studies

issue 18 November 2017

In Competition No. 3024 you were invited to submit a short story in the style of Dan Brown. This comp, a nod to the glorious awfulness of the wildly rich, bestselling author Dan Brown’s much-mocked prose, drew a nicely calibrated entry. In the interests of allowing space for six winners (who are rewarded with £25 apiece), I’ll step aside without further ado. Over to you.

Langdon stared steadily with his questing blue eyes at the poem the balding gigolo penned. What was it about the scansion? His heart pounded like a lineman’s hammer. A sonnet! An old form, invented by Giacomo da Lentini. 1230.
‘The Magna Curia!’ said Langdon out loud.
A voice came from the night-coloured darkness, interrupting his thought with a curdling scream. ‘Mind the volta!’ it screeched…
A sonnet! ‘I was here like a psalm,’ it began effortlessly. A psalm! As in church, as in Holy Roman Empire! Langdon felt a hot shock of recognition, almost passing out.


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