The Rule of Four

ian caldwell dustin thomason

Tom Sullivan is about to graduate from Princeton. He's intelligent and popular, but haunted by the violent death several years earlier of his father, an academic who devoted his life to studying one of the rarest, most complex and most valuable books in the world. Since its publication in 1499, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has baffled scholars who have tried to understand its many mysteries. Coded in seven languages, the text is at once a passionate love story, an intricate mathematical labyrinth, and a tale of arcane brutality. Paul Harris, Tom's roommate, has deeply personal reasons of his own for wanting to unveil the secrets the book hides. When a long-lost diary surfaces, it seems the two friends have found the key to the labyrinth -- but when a fellow researcher is murdered only hours later, they suddenly find themselves in great danger. And what they discover embedded in the text stuns them: a narrative detailing the passion of a Renaissance prince, a hidden crypt, and a secret worth dying to protect ...

Genres fictionmysterythrillerhistorical fictionmystery thrillersuspensebooks about booksadventurebook clubhistorical

544 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1,2004

Places

princeton new jersey, columbus ohio, austin texas, genoa, rome, florence tuscany,

This edition

Format: 544 pages, Hardcover
Published: February 17, 2004 by Arrow Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780099451952
ASIN: B002J3693I
Language: English

Characters More characters

Francesco Colonna

Francesco Colonna (1433/1434 – 1527) was an Italian Dominican priest and monk who was credited with the authorship of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by an acrostic formed by initial letters of the text....
Vincent Taft

Professor in Rule of Four...
Richard Curry

...
Thomas Corelli Sullivan

Protagonist and narrating character in The Rule of Four...
Bill Stein

Rule of Four...
Patrick Sullivan (rule Of Four)

Father of Thomas c. Sullivan...

About the author

ian caldwell

Ian Caldwell is an American novelist. After graduating from Princeton University in 1998, he and his childhood friend Dustin Thomason co-wrote the semi-autobiographical The Rule of Four, which was published in 2004.
Caldwell and Thomason graduated from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1994. Caldwell was a Phi Beta Kappa in history at Princeton. In 2005, Caldwell's wife, Meredith, gave birth to their first child, Ethan Sawyer Caldwell. They live in Vienna, Virginia.