The Rule of Four

The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, is a book about four students, and good friends, at Princeton. The story takes place towards the end of the school year as one of the four friends is hard at work on his term paper about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (unpronoucable, I know). When a diary is discovered that is thought to be the missing piece to the puzzle, another student of the book is found dead. The four friends must work together to solve the mystery of the book once and for all.

I found The Rule of Four to be slightly predictable. It has been compared to the DaVinci Code, and is similar in the fact that in both books people are trying to uncover mysteries that are much bigger than themselves. Unlike the DaVinci Code, I felt that The Rule of Four lost some of its momentum as it reached its climax. I thought that it was slowly building up to a great finish, and then it lost alot of its steam. Even though there was a surprise ending, I thought that it came too late to make much of a difference to the story, almost as if it were added as an afterthought.

So if you loved the DaVinci code, and you are looking for another fairly suspenseful novel, then The Rule of Four is a good read, otherwise you might want to pick up another book.