16. The Rule of Four

By: Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

One of the neat things about the Rule of Four is that the two authors are recent college graduates who demonstrate an amazing amount of well researched history as a pretext for a modern mystery. I know though, that I'm starting to get older when the small hints that the authors are younger than I am become glaringly evident. Nothing specific, just small details about college life that would only be of interest to other college students.

The story centers around four friends who are in their last days of their college career at Princeton. Paul is finishing his research paper on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th century novel that has puzzled historians for ages (the authors create a very interesting story about the history and authorship of the book, but how much of it comes from research and how much of it is fiction is deliberatly left unclear). In the tradition of the DaVinci Code, an ancient mystery results in the modern deaths of the people trying to unravel it.

Overall, TROF is not only a page turner, but one of those books that makes you want to look deeper into history to find out what really happened (which unfortunatly has wound up being an extra 15 minutes on wikipedia for me, so far). On the downside, I would have liked a more detailed afterword from the authors deliniating what was reserach, what was speculation, and what was pure fiction. There were only a few lines dedicated to that explanation. A good read for those who enjoyed "The DaVinci Code"- not quite as tight a novel overall, but enjoyable none the less.