Category: Fiction

Copyright/published Year: 2004 by Dial Press

ISBN: 0385337116

Binding: Hardcover

An ivy league murder, a mysterious coded manuscript, and the ì secrets of a Renaissance prince collide memorably in THE RULE OF ì FOUR -- a brilliant work of fiction that weaves together suspense ì and scholarship, high art and unimaginable treachery.

It's Easter at Princeton. Seniors are scrambling to finish ì their theses. And two students, Tom Sullivan and Paul Harris, are ì a hair's breadth from solving the mysteries of the ì Hypnerotomachia Poliphili--a renowned text attributed to an ì Italian nobleman, a work that has baffled scholars since its ì publication in 1499. For Tom, their research has been a link to ì his family's past -- and an obstacle to the woman he loves. For ì Paul, it has become an obsession, the very reason for living. But ì as their deadline looms, research has stalled -- until a ì long-lost diary surfaces with a vital clue. And when a fellow ì researcher is murdered just hours later, Tom and Paul realize ì that they are not the first to glimpse the Hypnerotomachia 's ì secrets.

Suddenly the stakes are raised, and as the two friends sift ì through the codes and riddles at the heart of the text, they are ì beginnning to see the manuscript in a new light--not simply as a ì story of faith, eroticism and pedantry, but as a bizarre, coded ì mathematical maze. And as they come closer and closer to ì deciphering the final puzzle of a book that has shattered ì careers, friendships and families, they know that their own lives ì are in mortal danger. Because at least one person has been killed ì for knowing too much. And they know even more.

From the streets of fifteenth-century Rome to the rarified ì realm of the Ivy League, from a shocking 500 year-old murder ì scene to the drama of a young man's coming of age, THE RULE OF ì FOUR takes us on an entertaining, illuminating tour of ì history--as it builds to a pinnacle of nearly unbearable ì suspense.

This is a used book.