Angels and Demons



Atria Books, 2003, 572 pp., US $35.00
Dan Brown






ISBN-9780743486224
















In the exciting prequel to the Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons stars the famed character, Robert Langdon, in an exciting chase through out Rome and Vatican City to find an antimatter capsule. Antimatter is the reverse of regular matter that could blow up at any minute if the battery that powers the gravitational field that holds it in place fails making it combine with regular matter causing an explosion comparable to one of a nuclear bomb just 3 times worse in damage and explosion size. The story starts out at the headquarters of CERN, the European center for nuclear research where the head director of the antimatter team is killed by an ancient origination, the Illuminati, after readying to declare to the world how the world was made using antimatter. The secret yet violent organization with the intention of not revealing the recent discovery is also at a violent war with the Vatican and with intentions of destroying the city and the Christian Religion by blowing it up using the antimatter when the entire priest population that is known to mankind are at the Vatican to vote for the next pope. They also plan to kidnap some of the more important priest that are planned to become pope to show their might and show how week the Vatican is by not having their important members. This plan is put into work in the next 24 hours after the burglary and murder of the director and so the CERN and Vatican Church decide to bring in former enemy of the establishment, Robert Langdon into the investigation and search for the explosive device. Joining Langdon on this search is Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of the antimatter director who was recently murdered in the attempt of concealing the secret information that the director was about to reveal. Although suspicious of Langdon at first, Vittoria soon realizes that her stereotypical view of him of as an “over glorified history teacher” is soon to be banished as he serves great use as a living history textbook about the Illuminati and the Vatican’s war against them and as a fantastic puzzle solver as they find that the Illuminati hid clues as where the canister of antimatter is and where the priest that were kidnapped are. This is a wonderful prequel to the Da Vinci Code with the author’s writing style fast paced and detailed. Fans of Dan Brown and mystery books and will not be disappointed by this novel and should not be surprised to about this astounding, crafty, yet gruesome end.