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  • "Nothing is lighter than being young with the world on your shoulders; it gives you a feeling of possibility so seductive..." I can see where, given the right audience, this could be a great read for someone...just not me. I've never been a young male on the verge of college graduation struggling wi ... Continue

    "Nothing is lighter than being young with the world on your shoulders; it gives you a feeling of possibility so seductive..." I can see where, given the right audience, this could be a great read for someone...just not me. I've never been a young male on the verge of college graduation struggling with my father's lost dreams. Decoding the Hypnerotomachia wore me out!!

    

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• ― Marion the librarian said on Apr 30, 2009 | Add your feedback

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  • Rule of Four

  • The was an entertaining debut novel about finding a secret code within the text of an ancient rare book. The story isn't without it's flaws but overall is told so convincingly that it actually inspired me to do the research to find out exactly where the line between fact and fiction is drawn.

    

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• ― Readingrat said on Feb 5, 2009 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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  • Would Recommend but Not Necessarily Re-read

  • The book started out great and was able to exclusively hold my attention for the first 3/4, but they were not able to succintly close the deal. It ended up dragging quite an unfortunate bit the last 1/4.

    

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• ― lisainindie said on Oct 23, 2008 | Add your feedback

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  • The only problem I had with this book is that I found it hard to suspend my disbelief that people would be so interested in the Hypertenmachia Poliphili (sp?), I had never heard of it before and therefore I thought the premise was weak.

    

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• ― Jane (delaflowers) said on Jul 25, 2008 | Add your feedback

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  • Otto's Books[return]Williamsport, PA[return]October 30th, 2007[return]$1[return][return]

    

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• ― Manatree said on Jun 26, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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.


From the Hardcover edition.

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