• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2013 June #1
  That Robert Langdon. He goes through more machinations in 72 hours than a phalanx of folk would in several lifetimes. This time out, the professor wakes up in a Florence hospital unable to remember the last several days. A bullet has grazed his head, and some bad people are after him, but with the help of the lovely Dr. Sienna Brooks, he's able to escape—and escape and escape, as he slowly comprehends that a plague is quite deliberately about to be released, and it's his job to figure out the puzzles and symbols that lead to its location. All of Brown's books have a big idea underpinning them—the family of Jesus, freemasonry—and here one of them is Dante's Inferno, a theme that will probably resonate more with readers familiar with the work, though many pages are spent explaining the man, his muse, and the influences that shaped the epic poem. The other theme sharing center stage concerns population control and humanity's determination to be fruitful and multiply itself into oblivion. Is it a worthwhile endeavor to cull the human herd in order to save it? In posing this and other troubling questions, Brown weans himself away from the guidebook atmosphere that permeates the story, as Langdon and Brooks race from Florence to Venice to Istanbul, and asks readers to think about their own answers to the overpopulation dilemma. Fans will once more enjoy the through line of the Langdon formula—the race to find a find an iconic object at the corner of deadly thrills and plot twists. The negatives are here, too: paper-thin characters and windy descriptions. But for those hungry for more Brown, this has some meat on its bones. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

Dan Brown is the author of The Da Vinci Code, one of the most widely read novels of all time, as well as the international bestsellers Inferno, The Lost Symbol, Angels & Demons, Deception Point, and Digital Fortress. He lives in New England with his wife.