Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Unfortunately, Amazon does not allow "no stars," which is what this book deserves. Had this book been written by a first time author with no travel budget and no access to a team of editors and researchers, it might rate two stars. But this is Dan Brown, author of one of the best selling novels of all time! I want my money back and additional dollars for pain and suffering! Brown's hero, Robert Langdon, wakes up with amnesia in Florence, Italy. He is told he has been shot in the head. The villain is so amazingly similar to Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series it is truly shocking. Thin? Check! Black spiky hair? Check! Motorbike? Check! Leather? Check! Gun? Check. This Salandar clone is employed by a mysterious character called the Provost who works for anyone who can pay and he will do whatever they want and ask no questions. In this case (or at least on this page) the person who employed the Provost wants to stop Langdon from discovering his evil plot. Langdon, in the hospital, has no idea where he is or why but is plagued (pun here) with visions of a beautiful older woman with silver hair. Within minutes of awakening in the hospital, the chase is on. The female, spiky haired villain shoots a doctor on her way to catch Langdon and, unbelievable as you may find it, ... Langdon escapes, joined by an attractive young female doctor he met two minutes before. Langdon and Sienna (the beautiful blonde physician) spend the first half of this book being pursued by various factions in black clothes driving black cars with blacked out windows. They find hidden passages, overcome locked doors, hide behind sculptures and paintings, outrun helicopter tracking drones, discover ancient caverns and on and on and on, always on the brink of being captured but always managing to make it in the nick of time as pages are taken up describing various paintings, sculptures, fountains, passageways, artists, Florentine history, and lots and lots and lots of Dante's Inferno. The plot, thin though it may be, is this: an eccentric billionaire, concerned about the survival of Earth due to overpopulation, has planted a quick acting virus in an unknown location which is about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Having gone to great trouble to perfect this virus and hide it away, this genius has, for some inexplicable reason, left multiple clues over much of Italy, using passages from Dante's Inferno as a guide to help Langdon and Sienna foil his plans. Why would he do this? Excellent question. Perhaps because the clues are shaky ground beneath Langdon and Sienna as they run hither and yon with no sleep and no food deciphering oblique clues as they stay one step ahead of the men and women in black? Now, Langdon, remember, was in the hospital with a supposed bullet wound to the head only hours before and he is now leaping tall buildings in a single bound, racing ahead of superior enemies, outwitting them at every turn, even though he can't remember anything that happened yesterday and has no idea why he is in Italy or how he got there. It's possible this book might have had a slender plot lifeline if some third party held hostage by the nefarious genius had risked life and limb to leave clues behind in hopes that someone would find them and stop the release of the virus. But, then again, the hostage would have to hope that some person who had made a lifetime study of Dante's Inferno would find these clues and be able to decipher their meaning. I read this book twice (hazardous duty pay) because I couldn't believe it was as bad as I thought. But, yes, it was just as dreadful the second time. On the outside chance that anyone reading this review would actually buy this book, it would be a shame to point out more of the many, many twists and turns that take place at the end of this book, some of which had me laughing out loud. Conceivably, the end could have been cut and pasted to the beginning and vice versa and it would not have made a tremendous difference. Awful? Let me count the ways.