Dan Brown's latest blockbuster "The Lost Symbol" follows squiggle and symbol guru Robert Langdon and scientist Katherine Solomon as the two race to solve an ancient Masonic puzzle before Langdon's friend is killed. The plot takes place in 12 hours, in a Washington, D.C., much like our own, all the while being menaced by an extensively tattooed, scaly-skinned, bad guy in a sub-sub-basement of the U.S. Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution.

The action-packed, clue-driven tale is vintage Brown stuff, of course, with skulls, daggers, portals, ancient secrets and those tiresome zealots who thirst to rule the world, but the landmarks and clues are real: the U.S. Capitol and Capitol Visitor Center, George Washington Masonic National Memorial, House of the Temple (Scottish Rite headquarters), U.S. Botanic Garden and the Library of Congress. Masonic lore wafts over everything but few readers will finish the book without learning some interesting details about the capital's high-profile buildings — and watch out for those pyramids.

— Chris Oliver

WORLDWIDE

KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR SO YOU CAN SHOOT, EDIT PHOTOS LIKE A PRO

Ever-cheaper memory cards make it all too easy to take picture after picture of the same scene, in the hope that one will be perfect. But if you think about what mistakes are trivial to correct in a photo-editing program — and which are difficult or impossible to fix — you can avoid coming home with 20 nearly identical shots.

• First, if your camera is new, it may have more resolution than you know what to do with, so don't worry too much about framing the photo precisely; as long as you've got all the important details in view, you can crop the picture later. The same goes for keeping the horizon level, as applications like Google's Picasa or Apple's iPhoto have "straighten" tools for that issue.

• Incorrect exposures are tougher to clean up, so it's worth taking multiple shots with varying settings and with the flash on or off. And there's almost nothing you can do with a photo where the subject is out of focus, so you really want to get that part right (use your camera's macro-focus mode, often indicated with a flower icon, for close-up subjects).

IN THE AIR

INTERNATIONAL FLIERS, BEWARE OF HIGHER COSTS FOR CHECKED BAGS

If you're heading across the pond this holiday season, travel light: Airlines are cracking down on transatlantic luggage, dinging coach fliers $50 or more each way for a second checked bag — about twice the going rate of domestic flights.

By Thanksgiving, four of the five airlines that fly nonstop between the U.S. and London, for instance, will be charging the new fee. Only Air New Zealand was still honoring the two-bag allowance on that route, with no plans to change, said spokeswoman Sarah Miller-Reeves.

Some airlines charge less for the second bag if you check in for your flight and pay the fee online instead of waiting until you arrive at the airport, so check with your carrier.