Publisher: Dial Press
Pages: 372
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0385337116
ISBN-13: 9780385337113
Publisher: eBook | Paperback
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 beginning 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 hard cover edition)
I love mysteries based on historical scriptures. The manuscript in this book for sure has something going on. It was not an easy book to puzzle along with the mystery though.
The book is told from Tom's perspective. The most important part of his life are his friendship, love and giving up. He lost his father to this book and is about to loose his best friend and maybe even himself. Trying to make everything better he has to face a lot of decisions. This obviously creates a lot of emotion.
Still the story failed to overwhelm me completely. Half of the hints for the mystery are missing and Tom only gives the characteristics of other people involved as he sees fit, making it they do not really come to life.
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