The Solomon Scandals A Washington newspaper novel by David Rothman

‘The Solomon Scandals’ vs. Dan Brown’s latest, ‘The Lost Symbol’: Same city, different books

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Dan Brown’s new best­seller, The Lost Sym­bol, is a con­spir­acy novel set in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., just like The Solomon Scan­dals. Brown even includes a power fig­ure with the last name of Solomon.

If you want to read about a “mys­ti­cal” Washington”—Brown’s por­trayal, as noted by David Plotz in Slate—then buy Sym­bol.

But if you care or also care for less ethe­real con­spir­a­cies, The Solomon Scan­dals might be of interest.

Sy Solomon the sleazy Wash­ing­ton con­trac­tor—invented and named decades before Peter Solomon—is a mil­lion­aire ex-bricklayer, with two fin­ger­tips miss­ing. He has a pen­chant for befriend­ing politi­cians and media peo­ple and putting up rick­ety build­ing that may or may not fall down, includ­ing an IRS-and-CIA-related highrise.

The only pyra­mid in Scan­dals is in an ancient logo for the Gen­eral Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion, and the style is often satir­i­cal rather than solemn. In the end, I’m reminded of two of the laws of library sci­ence. “Every reader his book.” And “Every book, its reader.” Def­i­nitely. What’s more, I’ll not accuse Brown of a rip-off. I’m 1,000 per­cent cer­tain that the over­lap­ping names are a coin­ci­dence. No con­spir­acy the­o­ries needed, thank you.

Adding to the fun, eons ago in the misty past, after I’d con­ceived the Solomon char­ac­ter, the real GSA ended up with an admin­is­tra­tor named Joel (Jay) Solomon. I left my Sy Solomon with the same last name. I doubted that any­one would have con­fused him with the Carter Admin­is­tra­tion appointee from Ten­nessee, who died in 1984.

Trivia: Sym­bol almost ended up with the title The Solomon Key.

Note: Updated with more details on Sept. 24, 2009.