Whatever suspense the David Lagercrantz book I read lacked,
this one more than made up for. But
that’s what Dan Brown has always exceled at – the breathless day and night chase
where no one seems to need to sleep very much, eat, or use the restroom, a sort of mash-up
of the Amazing Race, the television show 24, with a dash of Rick Steves.
This time the action begins in the art city of Florence. It’s a wonderful tour of the historic and
cultural sites, and lets the reader explore secret passageways and pass through hidden doors
that seem to honeycomb every building that Robert Langdon enters. (Particularly fascinating is the Vasari
corridor in Florence that snakes its way from the Pitti Palace across the Ponte
Vecchio, around the Uffizi, to the Palazzo Vecchio, a relatively unknown
passageway that secrets Robert across the river, one which I remember from our
visits).
Anyway, Inferno takes its title from Dante’s poem and Brown shows us all the main sights in Dante’s Florence. No less
interesting is the brief stop in Venice and the final rendezvous in Istanbul, a
city that I one day hope to visit. Overlayed
on the art history tour is a theme of human overpopulation and ecological
collapse. It’s a clever plot, but
perhaps a bit too intricate. Nonetheless
Inferno is an entertaining read.
Lately I’ve been sort of appalled by how much e-books have
increased in price. I found Inferno on
Overdrive at the library and downloaded it for free! I always intended to do that more often, but
sometimes I can’t bear the wait for things that I want to read now, and sometimes the wait is months and months for titles that are in high demand.
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