Already an author of five New York Times bestsellers and likely well on his way to a sixth, Brad Meltzer has honed his eye for the political thriller. He’s the kind of geek you want to be — part political junkie, part comic book guru (he also pens stories for The Justice League) — and his popular novels speak to this engaging combination. Meltzer appears tonight to talk about his new book, The Book of Fate, which arrived on bookshelves yesterday, at Politics and Prose at 7 p.m.

The blurb for The Book of Fate just screams DaVinci Code knock-off, likely to its literary detriment but also no doubt popular advantage among airport novel buyers. Billed as a story probing the deep ties the Freemasons have to Washington, D.C., you might wonder if you should just wait until someone casts an aging romantic-comedy actor in the screenplay, after which, out of curiosity, you’ll waste nine precious dollars on the longest two hours of your life, only to leave the theater wondering what the hell all the fuss was about. Meltzer tries to avoid a duplicative, um, fate, by steering his story away from the DaVinci template, with varied levels of success.

Fate follows Wes, a young presidential aide who was one of two victims during an assassination attempt which left another staff member dead and Wes forever disfigured. The story picks up eight years later, when clues suddenly surface that lead Wes down a trail of conspiracy at the highest levels of government, and on his own personal quest to resolve his guilt about his role in his colleague’s death.