Inferno

Dan Brown's newest novel, "Inferno," sends symbolist Robert Langdon on another mad dash adventure stretching from the Mediterranean to the Bosporus. I've given it a 5-star rating, because, as usual, Brown delivers on all fronts: interesting subject matter that is painstakingly researched, compelling characterizations, action squared, a plot that moves easily from one scene to the next and drags you along no matter how late it is, inclusion of interesting historical facts, lush settings, and a denouement that leaves you thinking not only about the novel, but about real life. And, of course, top notch proofing and editing. In other action thrillers, I sometimes feel as though I'm reading a movie script. The action is the focus, rather than the plot and/or characters. Not so with Brown. Here's an author who can handle the never-ending action, the constant danger, the exhausting, breakneck chase, the result of which will not only determine the life and death of the main characters, but perhaps the survival of human life on earth as we know it. The reader WANTS to go on this ride. Wants to feel the unrelenting adrenaline rush, the heart stopping suspense. You want it; you get it; you love it. For those Robert Langdon fans, this time the action races through the the famed houses of worship of Italy and Turkey, chasing clues from Dante's 14th Century epic poem, "The Divine Comedy," and specifically, the portion titled "Inferno." However, this time there is no religious conspiracy, no sacred quest. This time the subject matter involves the predicament we all find ourselves in: burgeoning world population vs. decreasing resources. In my youth, there was a movement known by the acronym "ZPG." Over the past couple years, whenever the overpopulation issue is mentioned, I've asked if anyone remembers what this stood for. Anyone under the age of about 45 or so does not. (Zero Population Growth) So this novel hit on an issue that has been of concern to me now for over 4 decades. But, that's another conversation. The book is nearly 500 pages long (462 to be exact). Long read. This has been a busy month for me, but I still managed to read every day -- in fact, I needed to read every day, as this book is full of the most fascinating twists and turns. Not only twists in the plots, but actually twists in who the individual characters are. Brown masterfully doles out bits and pieces of the solution to his puzzle all along the way, but still manages to surprise you when a character turns out to be the exact opposite of what you believed him or her to be. I'll admit to having one huge, and upon rereading, obvious clue go right over my head. When that part of the revelation came, I had to go back and do a -head/desk- over my oversight! :-) Tricky. And I loved it. So, I didn't read it all in one day or even in one week. Brown's novels are works to be savored. There is so much fascinating history, interesting concepts and wonderful mysteries that I have to stop every so often just to properly absorb what I've read. I need to taste the delightful flavor of each morsel of the literary puzzle. No. I take my time with Brown's novels. I drag out every Lucius paragraph, longing for the ultimate conclusion all while hoping it will never end. So, don't I have any complaints? Now, if you usually read my reviews, there usually something. For instance, starting on page 300, when Langdon and others are in the boat in Venice and come to the realization that the "plucker of bones of the blind" in Zobrist's poem referred to Saint Lucia, and their boatman began relating the legend of Saint Lucia, why didn't they ask him the identity of the doge who cut the heads off horses (another reference in the poem)? My other disappointment is in the extremely short timeline. If one starts with Langdon awaking in a hospital with memory loss, there are less than 2 days (actually less than 36) hours, I believe, in which this madcap race through the best known tourists sites of Italy to the Haga Sophia and beyond in Istanbul. It includes chases, conversations, motorbikes, boats, and just like Steve Martin and John Candy -- planes, trains and automobiles! Langdon has an injury and short term memory loss. There are two well organized forces chasing him. Yet, in all those hours, which are painstakingly chronicled, the only mention of eating or sleeping comes at the bottom of page 375. Langdon does get to splash some water on his face and change clothes back about chapter 7, but this is after what has already been a long (and for Langdon) forgotten night in a country he cannot remember either traveling to or why he might have done so. While I certainly don't expect a break in the action for the bathroom, I do expect to see scene that includes a hastily eaten meal, a quick shower -- something to indicate there was time to brush the teeth, revive the system with food, clean up. Pretty basic physical requirements for someone who will be in close, very close, contact with others throughout this adventure. I needed to see something to allow me to believe that an injured man suffering from retrograde amnesia would have the the physical and emotional stamina to do what he does, at the speed of light, for a prolonged time. I was also surprised that only one character in the novel -- and there are several who either know him or know of him -- notices that Langdon does not look his usual dapper self. I found the timeline exciting -- but maybe not so believable as one that allowed even one more day and at least one meal! However, Brown's descriptions of the places visited in the novel are rich and full. One of my favorite sections comes on page 300, the third paragraph in Chapter 84: "This was a world divided, a city of opposing forces -- religious, secular; ancient, modern; Eastern, Western. Straddling the geographic boundary between Europe and Asia, this timeless city was quite literally the bridge from the Old World . . . to a world that was even older. Istanbul." You run this race thinking you know what's at stake and what will happen if the 'good guys' don't win. You don't. Believe me, the revelations never stop coming. And, best of all, it will make you think.

Critiquing Dan Brown is a thankless task. His many readers already have their own opinion, love him or hate him. I, for one, find him to have various strengths and weaknesses, which are on display here as always. That being said, this novel, though not as strong as The Da Vinci Code, is not as weak as The Lost Symbol. Whether that judgment is based on my personal tastes or because of objective qualities of the novel, only time will tell. To Mr. Brown's credit is his ability to write an exciting, fast-paced novel. I never have trouble making it though a Dan Brown novel in a couple sittings despite their length. He also is very good at creating interesting characters. Robert Langdon is a character I don't mind returning to again and again. In this outing, I enjoyed "the provost" and his crew as well as Sienna Brooks, though all these geniuses are starting to wear me out. Finally, Mr. Brown is generally good at choosing a good historical topic for his tales. He fell short on this last time out with his masonic mystery but he returns to good form here with Dante and a modern black plague. Unfortunately, the beginning of the novel is weak. I found Langdon waking with amnesia and thrown into a ticking clock chase in the first few pages to be unsettling. It took me a good 50 or so pages to get into this one whereas I usually enjoy Brown's slow descent into the mystery through history and character. This shotgun beginning is then bookended by the biggest failure in Mr. Brown's writing in general; that is, his endings are so horribly poor. One of the main reasons The Da Vinci Code is the best of his novels is that the ending there is solid writing. Here, unfortunately, the ending again is completely not worth the effort. For a moment, I thought he was going to prove me wrong. I loved the climax as they come to the end of their search and I loved many of the reveals that show how manipulated the situation around Langdon is. What killed it all for me was the preaching disguised as dialogue that filled the last chapters and how easily everyone makes up at the end. Disappointing. Still, in the end, this is a fair addition to the Robert Langdon canon. Certainly, it is a step above his last outing. And for an historical thriller, Mr. Brown still remains a good choice of someone who writes a book worth reading.

The favorite author of the new generation readers has once again struck with his powerful pen, a mesmerizing and wonderful fiction, worth reading many times. Robert Langdon, the American professor, highly talented and expert in mythological symbols of the old world is called upon by the World Health Organization (WHO) to break the secret code of the famous painting of Dante’s Map of Hell also referred as La Mappa dell’Inferno, to unveil a dangerous plot by a renowned genetic engineering scientist Bertrand Zobrist, to destroy human race. The plot opens in Florence, Italy and winds up in Istanbul, Turkey passing through a series of twists and turns in tracing the final destination of the secret place and date where the scientist proposes to release the dangerous virus to the world, in a Sunken Palace somewhere in the middle of the world. In this journey, the reader is taken through a beautiful journey in gaining exquisite knowledge of Dante Alleghieri’s famous work “The Divine Comedy” composed in early 1300s, wherein he describes his great journey through the various stages of the so-called Hell in Christian religion. This great composition is the most widely read and respected in the world. Dante’s interpretation of his Hell and the Great Plague of Europe in the 1300s (also referred as Black Death) were contemplated to arrive at a disturbing fact that the World is over-populated as of now and needs to downsize the existing population by some means as fast as possible to help the human race to continue for some more centuries. This called for Bertrand’s wild and brilliant idea of creation of highly virulent air-borne vector virus that if enters the human body renders him/her infertile forever. This according to the scientist is the only immediate solution to curb the ever increasing human population that shall lead to widespread calamities, famines, starvation deaths and disasters in the near future. His great leadership on the Transhumanist movement whose fundamental tenets is that we as humans have a moral obligation to participate in our own evolutionary process and use our technologies to create healthier, stronger and intelligent human beings without waiting for the long periods of natural evolutionary process. However, Robert Langdon with the help of WHO and Sienna Brooks, lover of Bertrand Zobrist and a highly intelligent doctor do find the place and date of the release of virus. But will they be able to save the world? One must read this wonderful work of Dan Brown to catch the excitement! Pros: Some of the greatest places of interest in art and architecture across Italy, Venice and Turkey have been widely described with a lot of information on the history and significance of each and every great monument built that stands as a mark of human intelligence in the ancient period. The author’s outstanding talent in his research abilities and zeal to pursue world history through art and architecture is absolutely unmatched as of today. The reader will remain hypnotized and carried right into the middle of the scenes as long he/she is reading the book. The description of Piazza Del Duomo, the statue of David, Vasari’s paintings, cylinder seals, Death masks, the Medici, Palazzo Vecchio’s Hall of Five Hundred, Boboli gardens, Buontalenti Grotto, the Vasari Corridor, Uffizi Gallery, Mappa Mundi, the church of Dante, the Baptistry of San Giovanni, Gates of Paradise, The Rod of Asclepius, the grandeur of Vatican city, the Doge’s Palace, St.Mark’s Basilica, the Transhumanist Philosophy, the cupola of San Simeone Piccolo, story of St. Lucia’s bones, the origin of the word ‘quarantine’, the Grand Canal of Venice, the Venetian Gothic Architecture, the Byzantine architecture, the history of Horses of St.Mark’s, the Pala d’Oro, the Bosporus Waterway of Istanbul, the mosque of Hagia Sophia (considered as the eighth world wonder), Istanbul’s 300 yr old Spice Bazaar, the tomb of Henricus Dandalo, the Sunken Palace and finally the Dante Symphony by Franz Liszt are some of my interesting topics for study in this book. Cons: The fact that the great American professor was mentally manipulated through a series of illusions by the World Health Organization to help them decode the secret lying behind in Dante’s painting to save the world was not acceptable to me. Though Bertrand’s vision and cause is worth a standing ovation, the means he chose to achieve the goal seemed to be wrong. My favourite quote in the book : “The decisions of our past are the architects of our present” My rating is 5 out of 5

The story starts with a sedate Robert Langdon waking up in a Florentine hospital unaware of where he is, or how he’s arrived. Things heat up quickly when the assassin, Vayentha shows up and starts shooting hospital staff—her true target being Langdon himself. He escapes assisted by Sienna, a doctor treating Robert Langdon’s apparent amnesia while trying desperately to save the professor from the unexpected death so many hospital staff have just succumbed to. They dash through alleys. Langdon still woozy from the medication, falls more than once as Vayentha gives chase. After racing through a winding labyrinth of European streets and alleyways, Sienna finally helps Langdon into a waiting taxi, and they speed off, ducking their heads in the backseat, under gunfire from an assassin’s pistol. This exciting opening is just what we’ve come to expect from Robert Langdon novels, and author, Dan Brown never lets us down in Inferno. I enjoyed Inferno’s suspense and fast pace. The book was a cycle of deceptions and how they played out in Robert Langdon’s faulty cognition until much later in the novel when all was finally revealed—a bit too conveniently if you ask me. The narrative focuses on the diabolical plans of a man of murky intentions as he tries to save the world from itself, leaving Robert Langdon, Sienna and the Director of The World Health Organization to piece together the puzzle of his fiendish plot. Inferno is however built from the bones of The Da Vinci Code. There is mystery, an allegation of criminal guilt toward Robert Langdon—the book’s protagonist, globetrotting and a kooky conspiracy that only the world’s most genius art professor, with a preclusion for symbology could solve. That said, this story ain’t no Da Vinci Code. The suspense is in tact and the chase scenes too—so are the lengthy history lessons and travel brochure’s overwrought in every Dan Brown novel I’ve read, admittedly only two. But this story espouses a sinister agenda that isn’t exposed until damn near the last page, just like a true suspense thriller should. The difference being that Da Vinci Code supported themes of religious freedom, tolerance and difference, but those are just concepts. The shocking revelation at the end of this novel could have real world implications as it may support the agenda of some secretive and despotic trans-humanists. And yes there is a spoiler coming in later paragraphs about just what that sinister plot is. So only read on if you don’t mind spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But first lets take a look at character in Inferno. I feel so distant from Langdon and his experiences. He is a flat, never changing character who can be expected to be the same in nearly every scenario. The only emotional connection he seems to portray is an “ungrounded” feeling he experiences during the rare times he doesn’t “get” something, or a bit of romantic candor for Sienna, this adventure’s travel mate. There were moments of supreme thrill during action sequences and the suspense was sufficient to keep the pages turning, but the overall effect was disappointing because I felt disconnected from Langdon. That disconnect translated to the character’s responses to the action of the plot. He seemed to only act out of moral duty like a stoic proxy determined to correct an egregious error rather than an impassioned hero who was personally connected to the developing situation. Even after discovering just how diabolical the antagonist’s plans were, Langdon only slightly registered a feeling. It was the same thing I felt when reading this character, an ungrounded disconnect. Like a ship buoying up and down as the sea’s churning lurched it. And this was 90% of the way through the book, according to my kindle reader. Throughout this novel I couldn’t help but think the emotions were lacking. The only real emotional tug I felt was when reading Sienna’s back story, which made me somewhat sympathetic toward her due to her life-long isolation and Stockholm-syndome-like attraction to the villains plot. Sienna offered great interests to readers as an eccentric genius and surgeon/actress, but her eventual moral conflict and role reversals were a bit much for my taste and occurred to quickly for the effect to settle in. She came off a bit unbelievable. I’m surprised that an author as touted as Dan Brown could possess such renown for novels featuring such inconsistent characters. Zobrist was passionate when speaking with Dr. Sinskey about his plan. The narrator alluded to him having a charismatic persona, but in scenes where he should have stolen the show, scenes where he was revealed to be bisexual and in love with a male character, even he didn’t deliver the powerful emotions I would have liked to see in this work. A bit too unbelievable was the provost’s dream factory cruise liner, as I call it. A man who dabbles in glorified street performances that are meant to secure the most secretive and wealthy people on earth from both public and private scrutiny is a far fetched concept, even in fiction. This guy with his turgid demeanor and high-tech yacht was a bit Willy Wonka meets the Wizard of Oz. You have to remember he works in the private sector. He isn’t CIA or MI6, yet his authority is so far reaching and his connections so numerous that he brandishes more power than the director of the World Health Organization. I’m just saying. Brown is known more for his twisty plots and suspense than for conveying powerful emotion, but his characters suffer as leveled sketches, rather than round personalities. An author of his reputation for delivering highly readable fare should be fill his characters with pathos and panache. It appears that his over reliance on careful plotting may be the reason that the extensive research he does for each of his novels doesn’t translate into rounder characters. Inferno was is different. The thematic statement emerged in the end and it was frightening. The narrator seemed to suggest that world depopulation, even by dastardly deeds, is an imminent necessity to secure the survival of humanity. Not only does that statement emerge only within the last 20 pages of the novel, but it comes as a unexpected strike to the face, after this suspenseful narrative winds the globe taking readers on a thrill ride, only to drop them off at the feet of a heavy handed, and summative narrator challenging them to try the concept of enforced sterility as a means of population control on for size. The other 500 or so pages of the novel may have been a subtle attempt by the narrator to develop the problems of overpopulation aimed at allowing the reader to decide if the unethical practice may be a good alternative to environmental collapse before the final appeal. Admittedly, I may be reading too much into narrative. The cavalier and mishandled appeal shows the fictional leader of the World Health Organization espousing this view—a stark reversal of the opinion she had given only a page or two earlier where she was a staunch opponent to the sterility plague that had infected the world’s population. Maybe an attempt at adding fictional authority to an unlikely appeal to readers’ cognition? There was a moment where it seemed the author himself was speaking directly to the readers about a team of real world scientist manufacturing a dangerous strain of H5N1 (Deadly flu in common parlance) just for academic pursuits. The reference shows a picture of an out of control human science industry, misappropriating technology without invoking wisdom to guide their efforts. It comes off as evidence of the notion that human beings are morally obligated to use technology for the purpose of producing a post human race, based on trans humanism theories. The narrator supported the idea that an international and intellectual global elite should make forced population control a reality. Whether Brown was going for this effect or not, it is an eerie thought to think that those conspiracy theorists on YouTube may be right. Hell, they were right about the government wiretapping all of our phone lines, but nobody believed that until the Snowden papers were released. Scary thematic statement aside, the heavy-handed and lights-up-in-the-middle-of-a-concert approach to addressing the theme was jarring and inconsistent with the rest of the narrative. Despite the inconsistencies in the novel, I enjoyed the thrill ride until the end where I found myself wondering, “Is Dan Brown really saying we should support depopulation through genetic tempering?” Go figure. If you like suspenseful stories filled with chases and codes to be cracked, you’ll love Inferno. If you’re more of an emotional arch and round characters delivered in close perspective type, but you still need some mystery, I’d suggest Paula Hawkins’s The Girl On The Train.

INFERNO (A Novel). Dan Brown 2013. Doubleday, Random House. The darkest place in hell For Those Who Are reserved Maintain Their neutrality in Times of moral crisis. Dante Alighieri In his latest novel, Dan Brown, writer and American cryptographer author of Da Vinci Code, one of the most read books in this century, presents a journey through different worlds, different times, and spaces by which his character Robert Langdon goes in search of a place. Daw Brown character, is a professor of history and art of the prestigious Harvard University. Dante Alighieri narrates the novel taking as the basic framework of the poem "The Divine Comedy". The author's style has worked, to the extent that it creates the illusion of a "treasure hunt", with some clues, some real and some fake, that locate the reader immersed in big mazes, where the characters can disappear and die. Of course there is not one hundred percent true. Although there is a lot of fantasy itself framed by historical events. This is not an historical novel, however, encourages to continued historical and tourist routes, which all readers of thrillers and suspense are prone to compare. In my case, having been several times in the cities in which the narrative unfolds, Of course INFERNO novel, is a story of suspense, secret key, and a heroine character is reminiscent of the Millennium trilogy, Lisbeth Salander. Her name is Sienna Brooks. She will be the equivalent of a female Virgil the poet who accompanied Dante through hell, purgatory and paradise. She had and IQ of 204, thin, bald, medical doctor, specialist in martial arts, but especially a "drop out". The story is developed in three paradigmatic cities of Western culture: Florence, Venice and Istanbul. The suspense and epic storyline is supported by the account of the search for a place where going to change forever the history of mankind. Professor Robert Langdon wakes up groggy in a hospital in Florence not knowing what has happened in the previous night. How he is in Florence, when their habitual residence in the city of Boston. A pair of Italian doctors, one old, and a thin woman, blonde with a ponytail. They were reporting that he was the victim of a gunshot to the head, which caused a concussion and therefore retrograde amnesia. Robert know who he is, but is disoriented in time and space. Soundly Just, there is a woman with pointed haired, portly and tall, armed with a machine gun in black combat fatigues with green bracelet, breaks into the hospital, firing in the direction of the Professor. Robert watches as the older doctor dies, while the young doctor, speaking perfect English in addition to Italian, rescues him from that scene. She is Dr. Sienna Brooks, a dynamic lazarilla for an amnesiac Robert; she addressed a taxi just outside the hospital, while being pursued by a command through the streets of the city of Florence. In the department of Dr. Brooks, she indicated that in his clothing it was found a cylindrical object, with engravings that indicate bio-danger. The cylinder could be open by the Doctor's thumbs that object is a small projector that reproduces a painting a passage from Dante's Inferno. The painting is called: "The map of hell" and the author is Botticelli, the same painter of "Spring and the Birth of Venus", however Robert Langdon specialist in medieval and Renaissance art, immediately realizes that the painting has been altered. There is also a distributed key letters in some of the bodies of the sinners in the nine rings of Dante's Inferno. At the time they intend to decipher the meaning of the word CATROVACER, Dr. Brooks notices that have arrived already two black vans with a command, of black uniforms, surrounding the building where both of them are located. The couple must flee, and this will be the tone of the novel, the two are maintained by continuous getaway, the great escape, which is also seeking and found (The Quest). Meanwhile we learn that in the Adriatic Sea, an ultra-modern ship with a group known as The Consortium is in some way involved in what happens to Dr. Langdon. The boat is called "The Mendacious", that latter on we will find out, that has its Latin roots in something equivalent to cheating. The Consortium provided protection for one year to a scientist millionaire Bertrand Zobrist dedicated to genetics and to the Malthusian studies. This character was trying to convince the scientific community, foundations, benefactors and advisors of governments and even the World Health Organization, and especially to its director Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey, that should stop the exponential growth of the human population, because if not to do so in less than 100 years there will be a catastrophe because of the lack of resources for nutrition, health, work, education, water, energy, etc. Bertrand makes a remembrance, that after the Black Death epidemic, that killed one third of the humanity of that time, there was the phenomenon of the Renaissance. Although their mathematical predictions are correct, their proposals are never heard, because there is an ideological bias, cannot hear Dr. Bertrand Zobrist. The interesting thing about the novel is the deployment that Dan Brown makes historical knowledge, monuments, sculptures, and paintings in the three cities paradigmatic of Western culture. It also highlights the knowledge that he has on issues like genetics, advances in molecular engineering, psychopharmacology, psychology and updating of mass communication tools such as the Internet, virtual communication networks, gadget of different types and companies that are responsible for the massive deception. These companies like The Consortium, do business with things so personal and individual, for example, develop a false event, type a Scientific Congress, a business appointment, surgery, etc. for a wealthy men in order to have extra time for an affair. But these companies can build fictional events with an impact on the politics of nations and even the outbreak of armed interventions, handmade pretexts designed, as was the case of weapons of mass destruction of the Persian Gulf War. It is an entertaining read that through a streamlined narrative introduces us to the world of culture, in a stage of humanity where religions came together, geniuses and ambitious beings, usually politicians and bankers. Something similar to what happens at today time. We visit extraordinary places like cathedrals, palaces, gardens, and all framed in the poem of the divine eternal work of Dante Alighieri "The Divine Comedy". There is an old saying that has been attributed to Dante: "Remember tonight is the beginning of the eternity", this statement, is great understanding after the first kiss.

I never read any of Dan Brown's prior works. I saw the film adaptation of the DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. Tom Hanks did a great job as an actor and I found the films entertaining. Well, I thought with the release of Dan Brown's latest book, it would be a good time to become familiar with his written work. Overall, the writing was outstanding and the book is easily read in about 3 to 4 days. He builds the story with such suspense and expectation for the outcome that you are easily committed to each successive page. The book has tremendous entertainment value on the first reading. As far as the details, well Dan Brown weaves flashbacks with great mastery. He takes the past and seamlessly seams it into the present without giving away the future. Along the way, he fully satisfies knowledge of characters, their motivations, and important turns in their back story that lead them to present situations. He does not do this linearly, but in a spontaneous way that does not come off as an imposition on the flow of the tale. Rather, his timely disclosures fit so easily in the procession of events that you might both welcome them and be encouraged that more is to follow. The underlying motive of the primary antagonist is a topic of keen interest. It is a topic that some may say belongs more with Gene Roddenberry than with Dan Brown. I think the author approached the topic in a manner consistent with mystery and drama than with science or an exposition on a scientific topic. There is a sense of realism with the way Dan Brown treated the main plot of the antagonist in terms of how it ultimately unfolded. As a dramatic mystery, I think the story unfolds quite well. The historical references, the discussions about art, history, and philosophy are all there to offer material for intellectual intrigue. The ending and the information that comes out in the closing chapters leaves the reader with much to be satisfied about. It all seems to fit well with the general tone of the DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. However, I was moderately underwhelmed by the general conclusion in that a result in line with Gene Roddenberry might have been more compelling still.

This Dan Brown sixth thriller will be a best seller. Brown, as is well known, is the author of one of the most widely read novels of our time The Da Vinci Code. His worldwide sales have exceeded eighty million copies. In an interview on the comedy Stephen Colbert program, Brown responded to Colbert's remark that his sales were exceeded by the Bible with humor, smilingly saying, "But the Bible has been on sale much longer." Brown's novels are more than unraveling puzzles and decoding symbols. Besides being a riveting and suspenseful tale of a chase where people are trying to stop Robert Langdon from discovering a secret that in some way involves misdeeds by the Roman Catholic church, which appears to perform acts that harm people and society, Brown's books inform readers about history, classical books, cities, famous people, symbols they see frequently but do not know their significance, like the pyramid and eye on dollar bills in the Da Vinci tale or the mask with the large beak that we frequently see in carnivals, which is explained in this book. In this novel, Professor Langdon of Harvard University, an expert on art and symbols, wakes in a hospital in Florence, Italy, learning that he had been shot in the head but is unable to recall what happened during the past two days since he was walking across the campus in Massachusetts. He has a vision of a strikingly beautiful woman with silver hair, a woman in her sixties, who is telling him "seek and find." One of his doctors at the hospital is Sienna Brooks, a beautiful woman, in her early thirties. She tells Langdon that he was found carrying no identification repeatedly muttering "Ve...sorry." Langdon learns that Brooks is a genius with a 206 IQ and that people keep trying to kill him. He doesn't know that Brooks is hiding from something or someone. He realizes that the only way to save himself is by finding out what happened during the two days, what he was trying to do and, if it makes sense, do it. Circumstances make it necessary for Brooks to accompany him on his search and they race to escape from what seems to be everyone trying to kill them. All of this happened in the opening of this thriller. Following Langdon during the quest, readers learn much about the classic The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, which is not a comedy as we understand the term today, but a book written for mass audiences about Hell, a landscape rich in symbolism and iconography, a book that so scared people who read it that the attendance at churches tripled with the fearful after the book's release. We read also about Sandro Botticelli's painting La Mappa in which he depicted the map of Dante's hell, a painting that like The Divine Comedy has a prominent part in the novel. Among much else, we are told about the city of Florence, the city from which Dante was expelled, whose walls were built in 1326 a city that contains paintings with codes hidden in them; Michelangelo and some of his paintings, including a painting of the evil biblical Haman being crucified, like Jesus, and not hung as the Bible states, a painting placed in the Vatican; and other famous painters and artists, as well as Lorenzo de' Medici, the patron of many greats from Da Vinci to Galileo to Botticelli, who commissioned Botticelli to paint a provocative painting to hang over his cousin's marital bed as a wedding gift. The villains in this tale raise a host of thought provoking questions that will interest readers. The villains seem to have good intentions and seem to base what they are doing on moral grounds. Readers will find themselves thinking about what distorted the righteous basis and honest concerns. But, most of all, like Langdon, they will enjoy unraveling hidden symbols and will enjoy the drama, the chase, and the results.

If you are familiar with Dan Brown ( The Da Vinci Code , Angels & Demons: A Novel (Robert Langdon) ), you have pretty good idea of what to expect from him. _Inferno_ offers similar fare as with his other Robert Langdon books - a fast pace accentuated by brief chapters that keep you invested, plenty of historical and architectural detail, and a threatening and compelling plot. _Inferno_, as the title implies, is closely related to Dante's story and by extension, Florence. For readers familiar with either (or both), there Brown does them justice, his description of the city, its sights and its secrets are all vivid and honestly rendered. At the risk of spoiling the story, I will not go into detail of the other cities crucial to the plot suffice it to say Brown does these places justice as well. And it is primarily for these reasons - his eye for detail, his accurate retelling of the history of these places (and of the historical figures that play such a prominent role in the story) that I give it four stars. The plot was a bit of a disappointment, and at the risk of sounding pedantic, it was a disappointment to always be one (if not two) steps ahead of Langdon as he puzzled his way through the crisis. Of equal - if not greater - disappointment, was the resolution to the threat. Brown does a fantastic job of keeping readers off balance as one never knows who to trust or who is lying, who is telling the truth and who is telling a half truth through much of the book (which also made for tense, compelling reading); however, this was not enough to rescue the story from a truly anti-climactic resolution to what had been made out to be a crisis of Biblical proportions. Fans of Brown, I am sure, will happily overlook these flaws; the detail and descriptions of locations certainly go a long way in helping what is otherwise a mediocre story along. I read this on a long trans-Atlantic (followed by a trans-continental) flight - it was a perfect distraction, and under these circumstances, I recommend it.

Un thriller rapide mouvementé qui incite le lecteur à continuer à lire jusqu'au bout. Ce livre est dans la meme lignée qu'Anges et Démons. L'auteur adresse le problème de la surpopulation mondiale sans pour autant y plonger dedans et livre à la fois une solution extreme mais aussi une lueur d'espoir. Le style d'écriture reste du Dan Brown, facile et efficace sans être forcément stimulant. Un bon livre pour des vacances sans prise de tete.

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I’ve read all of Dan Brown’s books, and consider this to be his best yet. It’s the fourth book to feature Robert Langdon, distinguished US academic and expert in symbology. This time most of the action in the first part of the book takes place in Florence, one of my favourite cities, so that’s a bonus! The plot centres on Bertrand Zobrist, a geneticist and believer in transhumanism, the main principle of which is that humans must improve their race by becoming actively involved in the evolutionary process. The less positive side of transhumanism however, is that there needs to be a radical reduction in the population to enable the genetically improved cohort to survive and flourish. Zobrist has tried to get the World Health Organisation involved in his project, but not surprisingly they refused his approach. He subsequently commits suicide, but not before apparently leaving some kind of drug that he has created, to be released at a particular time, possibly threatening the future of the human race. The book begins with Robert Langdon waking up with a head injury in a hospital in Florence. He doesn’t know where he is or how he got there, and assumes that his short term memory loss is due to his injury. But it soon becomes apparent that he is being pursued, and he manages to escape from the hospital with help from a doctor, Sienna Brooks. He gradually realises that the vision that has been haunting him, of a silver haired woman, who instructs him to ‘seek, and ye shall find’, actually has some meaning, but what must he seek? He then finds an object sewn into his jacket, which turns out to be a laser pointer that has been configured to project a painting, an image of Boticelli’s Vision of Hell’, which has had some letters added to it. These letters are the first of a number of clues which he and Brooks must follow to try to find where Zobrist’s ‘object’ is hidden. Langdon knows Florence very well, and the search takes them all over the city. Finally the clues suggest that the search must move on to Venice, and finally to Istanbul. You will need to read the book to follow the chase and to find out if Zobrist’s ‘time bomb’ is recovered in time! The action is non-stop and exciting, and the descriptions of Florence made me want to go there again! it was very difficult to put the book down; I read it over a Bank Holiday weekend!

Large print and easy to read

Price off book was very good