The Rule of Four (Includes Advance Reading Copy)

Caldwell, Ian & Thomason, Dustin

ISBN 10: 0385337116 / ISBN 13: 9780385337113

Published by Dial Press, New York, 2004

About this Item

Signed by Caldwell and Thomason on the title page. A complimentary copy with the publisher's sheet laid in. The dust jacket has creasing, primarily to the rear cover and flap. An Advance Reading Copy in dust jacket (not signed) is included. ; 372 pages; Signed by Author.

Seller Inventory # 27797

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Rule of Four (Includes Advance Reading Copy)
• Publisher: Dial Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385337116
• ISBN 13: 9780385337113
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • All
  • Bibliomystery
  • Mystery

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Ian Caldwell attended Princeton University, where he studied history. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1998.

Dustin Thomason attended Harvard University, where he studied anthropology and medicine. He won the Hoopes Prize for undergraduate writing, and graduated in 1998. Thomason also received his M.D. and MBA from Columbia University in 2003.