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Book Summary InformationAuthor: Dustin Thomason, Ian Caldwell Edition: Mass Market Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2005-06-28 ISBN: 0440241359 Number of pages: 464 Publisher: Dell Product features:
Book Reviews of The Rule of FourBook Review: Insipid Trash, But It May Have One Good Use Summary: 2 StarsI read "The Rule of Four" when it first came out, and oddly, could remember little about it when I picked it up again. But, given the popularity of works like "The DaVinci Code," I thought I would give this genre piece a second look. I can see why I remembered nothing about the book on the "second read." It's abysmally bad.
The other reviews in this thread, good and bad, do an excellent job of summarizing plot and key elements. I will add nothing to that here. I will say that, with only one class in art history under my belt in my lifetime, I figured out the "puzzle" halfway through the book, which rapidly degenerated after the introduction into nothing more than into a long, drawn out series of "chase scenes" with a dull and forgettable climax. The book has almost nothing by way of character development, and the plot is so thin, it might as well be printed on cheesecloth. The flyleaf touts the fact that it was a serious work by star students at Princeton over six years. I wonder what they were actually doing, since they were obviously not writing a book.
I do think that this book would have one use. A reasonably talented high school student with an interest in art history might find it a fun way to discover some basic facts about Botticelli and the later Florence of Lorenzo, and might glean some measure of entertainment out of the "Hardy Boys" plotline. But that's about all.
Dreadful writing, boring "thrill" scenes, amateur and transparent plotting, and no meaningful character development to speak of do not a "thriller" make. If you like this genre of novel, I urge books like "The Club Dumas" and "Foucault's Pendulum." But "The Rule of Four?" Pseudo-intellectual ripped-off trash with not even the stupid fun of a fictionally viable "conspiracy theory" to make it an easier swallow.
NO recommendation.
Summary of The Rule of FourAn ivy league murder, a mysterious coded manuscript, and the secrets of a Renaissance prince collide memorably in The Rule of Four-a brilliant work of fiction that weaves together suspense and scholarship, high art and unimaginable treachery.
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.
Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they are beginnning to see the manuscript in a new light-not simply as a story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a bizarre, coded mathematical maze. And as they come closer and closer to deciphering the final puzzle of a book that has shattered careers, friendships and families, they know that their own lives are in mortal danger. Because at least one person has been killed for knowing too much. And they know even more.
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.
From the Hardcover edition.
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