2013, 611 pages. Book 4 (out of 5) in the Robert Langdon series. New Author? : No. Genres: Thriller, Historical Fiction, Puzzle Solving. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.
It's great to be in Italy! Robert Langdon has visited here a couple of times in years past, and he has thoroughly enjoyed sightseeing in Florence, his present location. There are all sorts of museums, cathedrals, and palaces to explore, many dating back to the 13th century, when city-stares like Florence and Venice were at the height of their power.
Alas, Langdon is currently in a hospital room, under medical observation. The nurses and doctors tell him a bullet grazed his head and he's lucky to be alive.
That probably explains why he doesn't remember how he got to Italy, nor why he even decided to travel here. According to the medical people, the trauma of a brain injury from being shot in the head often induces amnesia, sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent.
But it doesn't explain why someone is trying to kill him. Nor why someone, presumably the same gunman, has just burst into his hospital room and shot one of the doctors dead, simply because he made the mistake of getting between Langdon and the shooter.
What’s To Like...
Inferno is the fourth book in Dan Brown's fantastic thriller series featuring lecturer and historian Robert Langdon. Book 2 in the series is the mega-bestseller The Da Vinci Code, the book that got me hooked on Dan Brown. Here, as always, the action starts immediately, the thrills are non-stop, and our hero has to solve a bunch of riddles and save the world, all the while avoiding getting killed by one or more trained hitmen.
You can tell that the author meticulously researched the three settings in the story: Florence, Venice, and Istanbul. I felt like if ever I found myself lost in any of those cities, I could use this book as a map.
The book's title is of course a reference to Dante's Inferno, which I've never read. A lot of the puzzles that Langdon has to unravel are based on that classic, and the author works a synopsis into the storyline via a backstory and one of Langdon's lectures. You'll learn a little bit of Italian along the way, and a smattering of Turkish. I found the etymology of Purgatory and quarantine to be quite fascinating, so too my discovery that "H+" has a second meaning besides the chemist's "hydrogen ion".
The 611 pages are divided into a whopping 104 chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue, so there's always a good place to stop for the night. I found it to be a fast read, but not necessarily an easy one since there's a lot "tour guide" type of descriptions of the settings.
There are plenty of plot twists over the last quarter of the book, which is something I think Dan Brown is a master of. The ending is a mixed bag. On one hand it's unconventional, and it was refreshing to read something other than the usual "just in the nick of time" thriller ending. OTOH, a lot of the plot threads are left dangling, and unless Book 5 in this series resolves those threads, the ending here leaves you wondering what happens next.
Quatrefoil (n.) : an ornamental design of four lobes or leaves, as used in architectural tracery, resembling a flower or four-leaf clover. (Google-image it.)
Ratings…
Amazon: 4.1/5 based on 30,644 ratings.
Goodreads: 3.85/5 based on 475,002 ratings and 37,222 reviews
Excerpts...
When Langdon arrived at the event, he was met by the conference director and ushered inside. As they crossed the lobby, Langdon couldn't help but notice the five words painted in gargantuan letters across the back wall: WHAT IF GOD WAS WRONG?
"It's a Lukas Troberg," the director whispered. "Our newest art installation. What do you think?"
Langdon eyed the massive text, uncertain how to respond. "Um ... his brushstrokes are lavish, but his command of the subjunctive seems sparse. (pg. 104)
“I'm in some trouble, Jonas, and I need a favor." Langdon's voice sounded tense. "It involves your corporate NetJets card."
"NetJets?" Faukman gave an incredulous laugh. "Robert, we're in book publishing. We don't have access to private jets."
"We both know you're lying, my friend."
Faukman sighed. "Okay, let me rephrase that. We don't have access to private jets for authors of tomes about religious history. If you want to write Fifty Shades of Iconography, we can talk." (pg. 344)
“I've heard of denial ... but I don't think it exists." (pg. 279)
There are a couple quibbles, but no show stoppers. First off, you'd better love chase scenes, because the one here goes on for the first 450 pages, and that's literally 3/4 of the book. Similarly, you'd better like info dumps, because there are a slew of them here about the three settings, their history, their buildings, and the various artists who lived there in the Middle Ages.
The R-rated stuff is pretty much limited to a smattering of cusswords. I counted ten in the first 20% of the book, and these are of the milder ilk.
Lastly and leastly, the main storyline is about a plague and this being 2020, the last thing I wanted was a story that would increase my pandemic hysteria. But this book was published in 2013, long before the term "Covid-19" existed, so Dan Brown can hardly be blamed for my bad timing in reading this.
If you can make it through the seemingly never-ending chase scene, you are rewarded with 250 pages of as good of a thriller as anyone can write. And even if Inferno doesn't quite measure up to The da Vinci Code, well, so what? I for one am glad Dan Brown made the attempt.
7½ Stars. Dan Brown endures a lot of flak spouted by people who consider him a hack writer. A smidgen of it might be justified, but it's more than offset by his abundant talent for penning exciting stories. More than 475,000 readers have left a rating on this book at Goodreads, and more than 37,000 of those took the time to leave a review. He may not be Shakespeare, but there are lots of people, including me, who are drawn to his books.
No comments:
Post a Comment