Dan Brown’s unpublished The Secret of Secrets is coming to streaming, joining the ranks of dad TV

The Secret of Secrets is such a Dan Brown title. It has that straight-to-the-point, no airs vibe about it. Literary it is not.

Neither is Brown, and it’s one of the many reasons why he’s sold so, so, so many books. His chapters are short, his sentence structure is anxiety-inducing, and he’s not that concerned about neither poetry nor prose.

What he knows how to do is draft a propulsive plot that sends the reader barrelling towards the last page. His website claims Brown’s books has sold 250 million copies.

The next tome, The Secret of Secrets, is due out in September, the first Brown book since 2017 and the publishing world is already excited for the novel equivalent of the movie blockbuster.

That tizzy extends to the screen world too, because after a bidding war, Netflix has nabbed the rights to the inevitable TV adaptation of the not-yet-published story, the next chapter in the Robert Langdon tale.

The story follows Langdon to Prague, where his newish girlfriend is due to publish an explosive book that threatens to upend everything we know about human consciousness and established belief structures.

Then she and her manuscript disappear, and he is hunted by assassins, so Langdon is in a race that will take him to London and New York.

Pretty much like every other Brown book, which, of course, is what the reader wants. Imagine if he started to write rom-coms set in the world of hospitality.

Puzzle-solving professor Langdon is no stranger to the screen, having featured in three films (The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons and Inferno), played by Tom Hanks, and in a prequel TV series (The Lost Symbol) with Australia’s Ashley Zukerman portraying a younger version of the character.

The Secret of Secrets adaptation will be helmed by Carlton Cuse, a prolific TV writer and producer who has worked on the likes Lost, Nash Bridges and Jack Ryan.

It’s Jack Ryan that’s interesting in this context because The Secret of Secrets sounds like the perfect new entry into the slightly amorphous genre of dad TV.

Jack Ryan is obviously one of the core tentpoles, along with the likes of Reacher, Cross, Tulsa King and the truly dreadful The Terminal List.

It’s a genre without clear boundaries but you know it when you see it.

The Secret of Secrets ticks many boxes. Despite being a bookish dude whose superpower is his brain, Langdon is still very action-oriented, he’s constantly on the move, busting up conspiracies.

Even if he’s not prone to throwing a punch, he’s always on the side of good, this one guy standing up for all that is righteous and taking down villainous cabals.

Langdon is a doer, he’s always doing things. Dads like to do things.

Jack Ryan, Reacher and Cross, all on Prime Video, the spiritual home of the genre, are no brainers when it comes to dad TV.

They’re either current or former agents, soldiers or law enforcement. They don’t always support a corruptible institution but they’re inherently patriots that believe in the power of democracy and decency to change people’s lives for the better, even if, or especially when, the world doesn’t always operate that way.

When pushed, they’ll make the correct decision and not the easy one, and they’re on the side of the underdog. They’re also brawny as well as brainy and John Krasinski, Alan Ritchson and Aldis Hodge all fill out a t-shirt very well.

But it’s a sexual power that is non-threatening to other heteronormative men because they are not seductive lotharios, they’re just upstanding guys who you can shoot hoops with. Then go to the pub, sit side-by-side (never face-to-face) at the bar, down a beer or three, and talk sports.

These stories and characters also stand for conservative ideals. Not right-wing but an old-fashioned conception of masculinity that adheres to conventional, paternalistic understandings of strength and protection.

If you can just foil that plot, rescue that victim, or shoot that bad person, then order can be restored.

Perhaps that’s reductive, and these heroes are multi-dimensional in ways some of their predecessors have not been. They have traumas and histories, and they even sometimes, shock, talk about them.

All three series, like the Langdon movies and shows, are adapted from long-running book franchises that have sold very well at airports, so it’s likely dads have a prior relationship to those characters.

Alex Cross was previously played on the big screen by Morgan Freeman, an actor dads love. Jack Ryan has been portrayed before by many stars, but most significantly by Harrison Ford, who dads also love. Dads really, really love Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Obviously, “dads” are not one thing. Some dads like kooky stuff and would rather watch anything by Julio Torres than a single frame with Chris Pratt. Other dads spend all their time on YouTube, mainlining conspiracy theory videos.

Some dads are 32-year-old inner city bike riders while others are 72-year-old suburbanites who go to Bunnings every Sunday morning.

But there is certainly something in the rise of this genre in the past few years, when there has been great upheaval in the world, when traditional notions of gender and identity have been challenged and reconfigured, when the income gap has widened and economic hardships threaten the standard of living.

Those things are harder to categorise, or, in some cases, fight. How can one dad take on the complex and global legislative and social changes necessary to bludgeon the scourge of wealth inequality?

It’s too abstract, too hard.

Maybe he feels less impotent if he can instead distract himself by watching a strapping dude knock out some bad guys or solve a puzzle with the power of his smarts. Sounds pretty nice.