The Rule of Four
by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
I read this over the Memorial Day weekend on recommendation from my father-in-law. The plot summary immediately brings to mind The DaVinci Code: the adventures of four Princeton seniors trying to unravel the mysteries of the (actual) 15th-century text, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Mystery! Intrigue! Mur-derrr!
I liked this book a lot, for several reasons. First and foremost, all of the action takes place on the Princeton campus (my alma mater), which brought back some great memories. One of the authors attended Princeton, so the book does a very good job of describing a number of locales on campus, and I was able to follow along in my head when they talked about the different dorms and eating clubs.
Secondly, it's a genuine page-turner, and the air of mystery that surrounds this real book (the Hypnerotomachia) is fascinating. The means by which the main characters decode the riddles encoded into the text is plausible, and the conclusions they draw are equally believable.
Finally, the writing is erudite: several steps above Dan Brown, but not to the level of Umberto Eco (much to my relief). The authors prove themselves to be up to the task of tackling a wide variety of Renaissance topics in a very readable manner.
Sure, I have a number of criticisms about the book (one-dimensional characters and ungrounded abrupt plot jumps to name a couple), but on the whole this was a very enjoyable book made doubly so for me because of its setting.