Inferno, Dan Brown

Publishers: Bantam Press

Pages: 463

Main Characters:

Robert Langdon, Sienna Brooks, Elizabeth Sinskey

Inferno is the fourth book in Dan Brown's truly captivating Robert Langdon series and the novel finds our favourite art historian in the beautiful and historic city of Florence to solve his next art puzzle and mystery. After waking up in a hospital bed, Langdon has no recollection of how he got there or where he is! It isn’t until his Doctor (Sienna Brooks) informs him that he has been shot in the head with minor amnesia and that he is currently in Florence. 

Poor Langdon has no idea why he is in Florence but more importantly, why someone would want to shoot him. All he does know is that the weird and demonic visions which keep coming to him of a grey haired woman telling him to ‘seek and ye shall find’ seem more and more real, but Langdon has no idea what they mean! However, Langdon’s ponderings and confusion is soon ended as a blonde spiked haired woman wearing black motor cycling leathers, bursts into his hospital room and tries to shoot him! Luckily, his quick thinking doctor manages to whisk Robert away to the safety of her flat and tries to explain what is going on, revealing to Langdon that when he arrived at the hospital he was carrying a very peculiar object with him.

The object is a long metallic tube with a biohazard symbol on it that looks like it will only open with the use of a specific person’s fingerprint. Again, Langdon has no idea how he got it, however, when he places his finger on the device it opens. Luckily the item inside is not radioactive but is instead a small projector which when turned on, projects one of the most famous images of the Renaissance era, the La Mappa dell’Inferno by Sandro Botticelli. After this revelation, Langdon and Sienna are taken on a journey through Dante’s Inferno and discover that the person behind the projector and the reason for Langdon’s presence in Florence, is an extremely rich and powerful biogenetic scientist who believes that the human population needs to be culled for it to further evolve. Langdon and Sienna must work out the mad-scientist’s riddles and puzzles to discover where he has hidden his ‘solution’ to the problem of overpopulation and prevent it from been released to the world!

Botticelli's La Mappa

Once again Dan Brown has produced an astounding, bum on the end of your seat thriller! I’m always amazed at how he manages to consistently produce a remarkable plot but at the same time fill his books with so much historical detail, which I think Inferno has the most of. Brown’s understanding of Dante’s Divine Comedy is apparent throughout the novel but I really like how he manages to convey the information and story and twist it to his own plot.

Overall this was a great book and I’d suggest it to anyone who likes Brown’s other novels or to anyone who just wants to read a great novel!

For author’s official website click here.

P.S. Don't forget to enter my Book of the Month Competition for a chance to win a FREE copy of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson or The Iron King by Maurice Druon. To enter this great competition just follow the instructions on this link.