BookBrowse Reviews The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell, Dustin Thomason

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Murders, romances, dangers and detection. 1st Novel

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 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

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