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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2004, 384 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2005, 464 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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From the book jacket: It's Easter at
Princeton. Seniors are scrambling to finish their theses. And
two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, are a hair's
breadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili - a renowned text attributed to an Italian
nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since its
publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a link
to his family's past -- and an obstacle to the woman he loves.
For Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason for
living. But as their deadline looms, research has stalled --
until a long-lost diary surfaces with a vital clue. And when a
fellow researcher is murdered just hours later, Tom and Paul
realize that they are not the first to glimpse the
Hypnerotomachia 's secrets......
From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified
realm of the Ivy League, from a shocking 500 year-old murder
scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, The Rule of
Four takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of history
- as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable suspense.
Comment:
'An astonishingly good debut.... Academic evil stalks the
campus and no one is safe.... Intricate, erudite, and
intensely pleasurable.' - Kirkus Reviews.
Selected Reviews:
'An astonishingly good debut.... Academic evil stalks the
campus and no one is safe.... Intricate, erudite, and
intensely pleasurable.' - Kirkus Reviews.
This review
first ran in the July 6, 2005
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