The Consortium is real, too, Brown writes - and it might be, but would such an organization really have its headquarters in a giant yacht floating around in the Adriatic Sea? “Fact,” Brown writes in the book’s short preface: “All artwork, literature, science, and historical references in this novel are real.”īut that can’t be right, can it? Not when a simple Wikipedia search tells me that one of the important artifacts is believed to be a reproduction, not the real thing the reader is led to think it is. Meanwhile, three competing entities nip at their heels: an enigmatic female punk assassin, an enigmatic researcher with the World Health Organization and an enigmatic businessman who runs an organization called The Consortium - an MI6/CIA/Blackwater hybrid that specializes in doing complicated things for rich people. ’Inferno’ by Dan Brown (Doubleday) (Doubleday) Discovered in Langdon’s rumpled clothes, see, is a small projector that displays a pictorial rendition of Dante’s vision of Hell. Fortunately, his fetching doctor, Sienna - a former child prodigy with an absurd IQ - is willing to sling him on the back of her moped and help him figure it out: retracing his pre-amnesia steps and learning how Dante’s “ Divine Comedy” can aid them in foiling the posthumous plot of an evil genius. The city in “Inferno” is Florence, where a hospitalized Langdon has awoken with a head wound that leaves him unable to recall how or why he arrived in Italy. Rather than using the last minutes of his life to scrawl, “The is in the ” on a crumpled napkin, he uses them to concoct an artsy, esoteric scavenger hunt through a foreign city. Which brings me to the surest way readers can tell whether they have landed in a Dan Brown novel: A character is dying - a wizened character who is the sole possessor of a crucial piece of knowledge. His novels are like high-stakes, 500-page Mad Libs a reader doesn’t have to worry that it will be a fun ride, just that the adverbs and proper nouns will line up in a way that honors the art form. He has perfected the breathless art of the cliffhanger chapter, the ooky villain, the histor ish backdrop. At this point, it’s already clear what Brown can do with the genre.
One is still excited - one must be Doubleday is printing a whopping 4 million copies - but the anticipation feels different.
Tuesday marks the release of “ Inferno,” Brown’s newest Langdon installment. “The Lost Symbol” seemed of the moment and of particularly heightened American interest, set as it was in D.C. Nonfiction favorites included Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" and "Things That Matter," an anthology of essays by conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer.It’s been four years now since our last encounter with Robert Langdon, the be-tweeded hero who has Da Vinci’d and Demon-ed his way through three previous Dan Brown page-rippers.īrown’s last book, “ The Lost Symbol,” came out in 2009, smack in the vortex of a Brownado - a whirling era of “Da Vinci Code” European tour packages and Tom Hanks’s second cinematic turn as the lank-haired Harvard symbologist. Rowling wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, and John Grisham's "Sycamore Row." Sylvia Day's "Entwined With You" was one of the few works of erotic fiction to place high on Amazon's list. Khaled Hosseini was second with "And the Mountains Echoed." The best-sellers for kids and teens were Veronica Roth's "Allegiant" and Rick Riordan's "The Houses of Hades." Other major hits on were "The Cuckoo's Calling," a crime story J.K. 1 seller for 2013, the online retailer announced Monday. Dan Brown 's latest Robert Langdon caper, "Inferno," was 's No. (AP Photo/Doubleday, File) NEW YORK (AP) - A year after "Fifty Shades of Grey" overwhelmed best-seller lists, book buyers were seeking different kinds of thrills. 1 seller for 2013, the online retailer announced Monday, Dec.
Brown’s latest Robert Langdon caper was ’s No. This file book cover image released by Doubleday shows "Inferno," by Dan Brown.
This file book cover image released by Doubleday shows ''Inferno,'' by Dan Brown.