Inferno

June 10, 2013
The threat of world overpopulation is the latest assignment for Brown's art historian and accidental sleuth Robert Langdon. Awakening in a Florence hospital with no memory of the preceding 36 hours, Langdon and an attractive attending physician with an oversized intellect are immediately pursued by an ominous underground organization and the Italian police. Detailed tours of Florence, Venice, and Istanbul mean to establish setting, but instead bog down the story and border on showoffmanship. Relying on a deceased villain's trail of clues threaded through the text of Dante's The Divine Comedy, the duo attempt to unravel the events leading up to Langdon's amnesia and thwart a global genocide scheme. Suspension of disbelief is required as miraculous coincidences pile upon pure luck. Near the three-quarters point everything established gets upended and Brown, hoping to draw us in deeper, nearly drives us out. Though the prose is fast-paced and sharp, the burdensome dialogue only serves plot and back story, and is interspersed with unfortunate attempts at folksy humor. It's hard not to appreciate a present day mega-selling thriller that attempts a refresher course in Italian literature and European history. But the real mystery is in the book's denouement and how Brown can possibly bring his hero back for more. Agent: Heide Lange, Sanford J. Greenberger Associates.

Brown's (The Lost Symbol, 2009, etc.) latest, in which a very bad guy is convinced that there are entirely too many people roaming the surface of the planet, and, because he's a fan of Dante and the Plague both, he's set to unleash inferno upon the world. Naturally enough, this being a Brown novel, someone is in possession of a piece of occult knowledge that will save the day--or not. The novel is populated with the usual elements in the form of secret, conspiratorial organizations and villains on the way to being supervillains, and readers of a literary bent may find the writing tortured: "This morning, as he stepped onto the private balcony of his yacht's stateroom, the provost looked across the churning sea and tried to fend off the disquiet that had settled in his gut." To his credit, Brown's yarn is somewhat more tightly constructed than his earlier Langdon vehicles, though its best parts are either homages or borrowings; the punky chick assassin who threatens Langdon, for instance, seems to have wandered in from a Stieg Larsson set, while the car-chase-and-explosions stuff, to say nothing of Langdon's amnesiac wanderings around the world, would seem to be a nod to Robert Ludlum. (Being chased by a drone is a nice touch, though.) If you want more of the great medieval poet Dante woven into a taut thriller, see Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club. Ace symbologist Robert Langdon returns, and the world trembles. Perfect escapist reading for fans. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 29, 2013
Harvard Professor Robert Langdon returns for another globetrotting adventure in Brown’s latest. Awakening in an Italian hospital room, Langdon is suffering from short-term amnesia. He has no idea what’s happened to him during the past few days or why he’s in Italy. Before he can begin to pull his thoughts together, an assassin breaks into the hospital and attempts to kill him, sending the academic, along with a beautiful nurse, fleeing into the streets of Florence and straight into a mind-bending mystery, the key to which is buried in Dante’s masterwork, the Divine Comedy. As Langdon travels around the world, navigating his way through a labyrinth of clues, it becomes clear that he is in a race against time to stop an evil mastermind’s devilish plot that threatens the future of all humankind. Paul Michael’s narration is clear and precise; his pronunciation of each word, including large passages in Italian, is impeccable. He skillfully keeps the story moving at a strong, steady pace and balances a large cast of international characterizations with ease. He also manages to deliver Brown’s signature mountain of historical material without slowing the story to a crawl and offers an accomplished reading sure to satisfy any listener. A Doubleday hardcover.