The Rule of Four [Hardcover]

Ian Caldwell (Author), Dustin Thomason (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2004

An ivy league murder, a mysterious coded manuscript, and the secrets of a Renaissance prince collide memorably in The Rule of Four—a brilliant work of fiction that weaves together suspense and scholarship, high art and unimaginable treachery.

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

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

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Caldwell and Thomason's intriguing intellectual suspense novel stars four brainy roommates at Princeton, two of whom have links to a mysterious 15th-century manuscript, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. This rare text (a real book) contains embedded codes revealing the location of a buried Roman treasure. Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are inevitable, but Caldwell and Thomason's book is the more cerebral-and better written-of the two: think Dan Brown by way of Donna Tartt and Umberto Eco. The four seniors are Tom Sullivan, Paul Harris, Charlie Freeman and Gil Rankin. Tom, the narrator, is the son of a Renaissance scholar who spent his life studying the ancient book, "an encyclopedia masquerading as a novel, a dissertation on everything from architecture to zoology." The manuscript is also an endless source of fascination for Paul, who sees it as "a siren, a fetching song on a distant shore, all claws and clutches in person. You court her at your risk." This debut novel's range of topics almost rivals the Hypnerotomachia's itself, including etymology, Renaissance art and architecture, Princeton eating clubs, friendship, steganography (riddles) and self-interpreting manuscripts. It's a complicated, intricate and sometimes difficult read, but that's the point and the pleasure. There are murders, romances, dangers and detection, and by the end the heroes are in a race not only to solve the puzzle, but also to stay alive. Readers might be tempted to buy their own copy of the Hypnerotomachia and have a go at the puzzle. After all, Caldwell and Thomason have done most of the heavy deciphering-all that's left is to solve the final riddle, head for Rome and start digging.
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–A compelling modern thriller that cleverly combines history and mystery. When four Princeton seniors begin the Easter weekend, they are more concerned with their plans for the next year and an upcoming dance than with a 500-year-old literary mystery. But by the end of the holiday, two people are dead, two of the students are injured, and one has disappeared. These events, blended with Renaissance history, code breaking, acrostics, sleuthing, and personal discovery, move the story along at a rapid pace. Tom Sullivan, the narrator, tells of his late father's and then a roommate's obsession with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th-century "novel" that has long puzzled scholars. Paul has built his senior thesis on an unpopular theory posited by Tom's father–that the author was an upper-class Roman rather than a monk–and has come close to proving it. While much of the material on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is arcane and specialized, it is clearly explained and its puzzles are truly puzzling, while the present-day action is compelling enough to keep teens reading. There is a love interest for Tom and a lively portrayal of Princeton life. This novel will appeal to readers of Dan Brown's TheDa Vinci Code (Doubleday, 2003) but it supplies a lot more food for thought, even including some salacious woodcuts from the original book as well as coded excerpts and their solutions.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: The Dial Press; 1st edition (May 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385337116
• ISBN-13: 978-0385337113
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,234 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #599,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

86 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars YAWN, March 16, 2008

By 

D. Meyers (Grand Rapis, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rule of Four (Mass Market Paperback)

I have to admit - after two thirds of the book, I could go no further. I put it aside never to return. The plot was a little cliche, riding the tails of other books about mysterious discoveries that shed truth on cultural history. That would be OK. The plot, however, got lost in the personal and sophmoric antics of college students that were frankly uninspiring. However, if all the padding about Princeton were taken out, there would be little left. The pace was too sloooow and the writing not tight enough to make it interesting. The discoveries of protagonist were too infrequent and the impact was lost. I also heard some of this book on tape. The reader was excellent, but it was clear that he was even straining to generate some interest in the listener.

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'm mystified by this book's popularity, March 26, 2005

By 

C. Bell (Yellowstone National Park, WY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Rule of Four (Hardcover)

I went to Princeton, and the only aspects of this book that I found worthwhile were its oft-evocative descriptions of my alma mater. (Though, for the record, I'd like to state that it's not very accurate in its depiction of the undergraduate experience.) I can't imagine what anyone without fond memories of the university would see in this poorly-written and poorly-plotted novel.

My main complaint, I think, is with the self-consciousness and artificiality of the prose. The book reads as if its authors are trying to show off their creativity and intellectual prowess. Unfortunately, the resulting text contains awkwardly-structured sentences and laughable similes (a book "spread open on the floor with its spine broken, like a butterfly somebody stepped on"; "a good graduate program can smell indecision like a dog can smell fear"). The writing is such that you can't get lost in the story, for you always feel the authors' presence.

It doesn't help that the characters are flat and not even remotely believable, and that it is utterly lacking in suspense--odd, that, in a novel billed as a thriller. Both problems are largely a result of the structure of the book, which relies on frequent flashbacks to develop the psychology of the characters and explain the strangely powerful hold a Renaissance-era manuscript, the Hypnerotomachia, has over them. The technique of revealing details about the personalities of characters through flashbacks can be a very useful one, but here it falls flat, simply because nothing important is ever revealed.

Still, I might have forgiven _The Rule of Four_'s vapid prose, poor pacing, and undeveloped characters if there had been a compelling case made for the seemingly-supernatural significance of the Hypnerotomachia. Alas, nothing ever comes of it. It isn't often that I regret having read a book, but this one really was a waste of time.

66 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars One of the least compelling books I've read, April 20, 2008

By 

M. Detlefsen - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rule of Four (Mass Market Paperback)

The premise was interesting, but the characters were lifeless for me. I didn't care about any of them. There was way too much about college life and not enough about the so-called mystery, although if they had stuck to the mystery the book would have been a fraction of the length. If the mystery/suspense aspect hadn't been hyped so much, I wouldn't have bought this in the first place. I have many books that I read and re-read mainly because I enjoy the quality of writing and the characterizations, but this certainly isn't one of them.

The choice of writing in the first person present tense was curious. This works for short stories, but I think this book shows why it doesn't work for novels, at least for me. It made it very difficult to get past the reading process and into the story. I can generally get lost in a story and forget I'm reading, but not with this one.

I rarely get rid of books (I have 3700+ around the house), but this one is headed for Goodwill or Half Price.