The Rule Of Four - Softcover

"This year's biggest publishing sensation" (Guardian)

"One part The Da Vinci Code, one part The Name of the Rose - A blazingly good yarn [and] an exceptional piece of scholarship ... A smart, swift, multitextured tale that both entertains and informs" (San Francisco Chronicle)

"The Da Vinci Code for people with brains" (Independent)

"A stunning first novel ... if Scott Fitzgerald, Umberto Eco, and Dan Brown teamed up to write a novel, the result would be The Rule of Four. An extraordinary and brilliant accomplishment - a must read" (Nelson DeMille)

"An assured piece of fiction that weaves together the past and the present seamlessly ... I enjoyed it tremendously" (Observer)

Tom Sullivan, about to graduate from Princeton, is haunted by the violent death of his father, an academic who devoted his life to studying one of the rarest, most complex and most valuable books in the world. Coded in seven languages, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an intricate mathematical mystery and a tale of love and arcane brutality, has baffled scholars since 1499.

Tom's friend Paul is similarly obsessed and when a long-lost diary surfaces, they finally seem to make a breakthrough. But only hours later, a fellow researcher is murdered and the two friends suddenly find themselves in great danger. Working desperately to expose the book's secret, they slowly uncover a Renaissance tale of passion and blood, a hidden crypt and a secret worth dying to protect.