The Rule of Four
- Book Review,
by Ian Caldwell
From Publishers Weekly
Caldwell and Thomason's intriguing intellectual suspense novel stars four brainy roommates at Princeton, two of whom have links to a mysterious 15th-century manuscript, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. This rare text (a real book) contains embedded codes revealing the location of a buried Roman treasure. Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are inevitable, but Caldwell and Thomason's book is the more cerebral-and better written-of the two: think Dan Brown by way of Donna Tartt and Umberto Eco. The four seniors are Tom Sullivan, Paul Harris, Charlie Freeman and Gil Rankin. Tom, the narrator, is the son of a Renaissance scholar who spent his life studying the ancient book, "an encyclopedia masquerading as a novel, a dissertation on everything from architecture to zoology." The manuscript is also an endless source of fascination for Paul, who sees it as "a siren, a fetching song on a distant shore, all claws and clutches in person. You court her at your risk." This debut novel's range of topics almost rivals the Hypnerotomachia's itself, including etymology, Renaissance art and architecture, Princeton eating clubs, friendship, steganography (riddles) and self-interpreting manuscripts. It's a complicated, intricate and sometimes difficult read, but that's the point and the pleasure. There are murders, romances, dangers and detection, and by the end the heroes are in a race not only to solve the puzzle, but also to stay alive. Readers might be tempted to buy their own copy of the Hypnerotomachia and have a go at the puzzle. After all, Caldwell and Thomason have done most of the heavy deciphering-all that's left is to solve the final riddle, head for Rome and start digging. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–A compelling modern thriller that cleverly combines history and mystery. When four Princeton seniors begin the Easter weekend, they are more concerned with their plans for the next year and an upcoming dance than with a 500-year-old literary mystery. But by the end of the holiday, two people are dead, two of the students are injured, and one has disappeared. These events, blended with Renaissance history, code breaking, acrostics, sleuthing, and personal discovery, move the story along at a rapid pace. Tom Sullivan, the narrator, tells of his late father's and then a roommate's obsession with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th-century "novel" that has long puzzled scholars. Paul has built his senior thesis on an unpopular theory posited by Tom's father–that the author was an upper-class Roman rather than a monk–and has come close to proving it. While much of the material on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is arcane and specialized, it is clearly explained and its puzzles are truly puzzling, while the present-day action is compelling enough to keep teens reading. There is a love interest for Tom and a lively portrayal of Princeton life. This novel will appeal to readers of Dan Brown's TheDa Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003) but it supplies a lot more food for thought, even including some salacious woodcuts from the original book as well as coded excerpts and their solutions.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Despite comparisons to the bestselling Da Vinci Code, critics agree that this debut novel, though it contains similarly complicated codes, murder, and a race against the clock, is a smarter read. Think Donna Tartt or even Umberto Eco. The question is how much energy readers care to devote to a more cerebral, but still thrilling, campus murder mystery and coming-of-age story. Some reviewers thought that the authors, both recent grads, excelled at evoking modern Princeton life. Others felt only the storyline exploring the mystery and myth of the ancient text (a real book) truly sang on the page. The authors reveal their novelistic inexperience at various turns, though write with “precision and bravado” at key moments. The Rule of Four will try to “out-anagram, out-acrostic and out-cipher-text” anything in its path (New York Times). So watch out.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From AudioFile
Josh Hamilton gives a splendid reading of what may well be a superb novel. He moves easily between the Princeton students of today and the high scholarship of yesteryear. The trouble? He has just six hours for a story that runs 368 pages in the actual novel. And this a densely plotted mystery built around a five-hundred-year-old manuscript, itself notoriously inscrutable. Said manuscript, the Hypnoerotomachia (say that four times and you'll have a bestseller), may hide treasures of astounding worth. There are lively, if disjointed, action scenes, and even pithy quotes, for instance, the Italian saying--"A bad book is the worst thief." This version is more a sampling than a story. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
The Da Vinci Code started the ball rolling, but these days you can hardly pick up a thriller that doesn't involve codes lurking in ancient literature. Tom is a senior at Princeton, torn between solitary scholarship and engagement with the world. His father sacrificed his life attempting to decipher the incredible secret of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a rare Renaissance text, and now his brilliant friend, Paul, is on the verge of cracking it himself. Tom resists its pull, but as a half-millennium of history comes to a head in one bloody weekend on campus, he finds himself sucked into its vortex anyway. The authors, best friends since childhood, have made an impressive debut, a coming-of-age novel in the guise of a thriller, packed with history (real and invented) and intellectual excitement. But despite their command of language and arcana, the book occasionally betrays its origins as a post-college project. Tom's romance with a sophomore, for example, lacks heft as competition for the Hypnerotomachia. Given the latter's huge historical implications, most of us will simply root for him to hit the books. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Caldwell and Thomason have created a stunning first novel; a perfect blend of suspense and a sensitive coming of age story. 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
Book Description
A mysterious coded manuscript, a violent Ivy League murder, and the secrets of a Renaissance prince collide in a labyrinth of betrayal, madness, and genius. THE RULE OF FOUR Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets -- to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline looms, research has stalled -- until an ancient diary surfaces. What Tom and Paul discover inside shocks even them: proof that the location of a hidden crypt has been ciphered within the pages of the obscure Renaissance text. Armed with this final clue, the two friends delve into the bizarre world of the Hypnerotomachia -- a world of forgotten erudition, strange sexual appetites, and terrible violence. But just as they begin to realize the magnitude of their discovery, Princeton's snowy campus is rocked: a longtime student of the book is murdered, shot dead in the hushed halls of the history department. A tale of timeless intrigue, dazzling scholarship, and great imaginative power, The Rule of Four is the story of a young man divided between the future's promise and the past's allure, guided only by friendship and love.
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