Inferno by Dan Brown

Dan Brown: the mere mention of his name can turn some people into raving lunatics. Brown can't write. His stories are contrived. His plots are thin and poorly imagined. His grammar and language suck. His research is superficial. I could go on and on with the rantings of these folks. What I don't understand is why these folks feel compelled to read Brown's books? If the books irk you so much, save your money and your time. Walk by the book display. I think that some folks just love to complain, and I think that others like to believe that they are part of the intelligentsia that only reads literature. Others may be suffering from petty jealousy because they would love to be a best selling author. Let me just say that i am not part of the attacking hoards. I like Dan Brown's books. Heck, I even loved some of the them.

Inferno came out in May, but I didn't get a chance to read it until my vacation last week. I wasn't a huge fan of Lost Symbol, but the concept of Inferno seemed to return to Brown's earlier themes of symbology in classical works. In this case, the classical work is Dante's Divine Comedy. Robert Langdon awakens in a hospital in Florence, realizing that he lost two days. He can't remember how he got from his class at Harvard to a hospital in Florence. As he tries to figure out what happened, with the help of young, super-intelligent, Sienna Brooks, Langdon realizes that he needs to look at Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory, and Heaven to find a biological threat to civilization. As Langdon races through Florence to recover his lost 48 hours and to discover the secret of Inferno, he is hunted by mysterious police officials dressed in black. Langdon races through Florence and Venice trying to escape deadly assassins. That's enough to be said about the plot.

Inferno is full of the fast-paced thrills and puzzles that Brown gave us in The DaVinci Code. I thought it was a much more entertaining read than Lost Symbol, which I guess is a recommendation. The ending was a bit of a disappointment, and it just seemed to be more like the balloon deflating from a slow leak than the heart stopping pop that I was hoping for. I like the earlier Brown books much better. I think that the more time he puts into the books, the more confusion he adds to the mix. That said, I'm still looking forward to the next Dan Brown book. The only problem is that it will probably be years from now before it will be published.