Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason’s The Rule of Four

From Flap: “Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth away from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomochia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has baffled scholars for centuries. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomochia may finally reveal its secrets–to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose futured depends on it. But as the deadline looms, research has stalled–until an ancient diary surfaces. What Tom and Paul discover inside shocks even them: proof that the location of a hidden crypt has been ciphered within the passages of the obscure Renaissance text.

Armed with this final clue, the two friends delve into the bizarre world of the Hypnerotomochia–a world of forgotten erudition, strange sexual appetites, and terrible violence. But just as they begin to realize the magnitude of their discovery, Princeton’s snowy campus is rocked: a longtime student of the book is murdered, shot dead in the hushed halls of the history department.”

To be honest, it seems that they wrote the summary before they even wrote the book. I didn’t see all of the “strange sexual appetites”, etc. looming in the ancient text, but hey, whatever. It’s like they forgot to add that in or something. You know those books that make you frustrated because you just can’t decide whether you liked them or not? Well, this is one of them. I was confused 70% of the time. It’s like the two authors would come upon a new idea, and realized they hadn’t sufficiently explain something in the past, so they would jump back into the past for a few chapters and randomly come back to the present with the least indication of what was going on, or even what time period the reader should imagine themselves in. Also, I’m not a Renaissance scholar, so I would have appreciated it if they put the whole ancient text thing in more simple terms. The book was just very Da Vinci-Esque. You know, OH! look at the corruption among the people during the Renaissance, oh no! That kind of thing.

The ending was cute, though. And the overall plot had so much potential, if only it could have been realized. I liked the characters, but at some parts, it felt like a hollywood movie. I was picturing Tom Cruise running from a burning car in mission impossible because that’s just how it made me feel, if that makes any sense. If you liked the Da Vinci Code though, and would like to read something better than it, check it out.