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The Rule Of Four
A Novel
by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

5.0 based on 17 reviews read critic reviews how did we calculate this? based on 12 votes read user comments rate this book

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• Official Publisher Site

A mysterious coded manuscript, a violent Ivy League murder, and the secrets of a Renaissance prince collide in a labyrinth of betrayal, madness, and genius. [Dial Press]

Dial Press, 384 pages
05/11/2004
$24.00

ISBN: 0385337116

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Publishers Weekly

Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are inevitable, but Caldwell and Thomason's book is the more cerebral -- and better written -- of the two: think Dan Brown by way of Donna Tartt and Umberto Eco.

Houston Chronicle Lois Zamora

Beautifully written first novel.

Kirkus Reviews

Scholarship as romance: intricate, erudite, and intensely pleasurable.

New York Review Of Books Anthony Grafton

What this ingenious book does highlight, however, is something else new in college fiction: it focuses on the one long hard moment -- a moment many, many bright American undergraduates experience -- when the splendors and miseries of personal existence and the frighteningly powerful appeal of books, problems, and ideas come together in a truly dangerous way.

Booklist Keir Graff

The authors, best friends since childhood, have made an impressive debut, a coming-of-age novel in the guise of a thriller, packed with history (real and invented) and intellectual excitement. [1 Apr 2004, p.1350]

Chicago Tribune Dick Adler

What they do best is show how friendships form and survive, even under the weight of history. [23 May 2004, p.III 2]

San Francisco Chronicle David Lazarus

As much a blazingly good yarn as it is an exceptional piece of scholarship.

Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Reimer

An ingenious and enjoyable frolic.

The Guardian Matthew Lewin

An impressive debut - more for the scholarship and erudition of the two authors (one was a history star at Princeton, the other a prize-winning student at Harvard) than for its thrills and chills.

The Independent Jane Jakeman

The bitcheries of academic life are immaculately observed, in a fascinating glimpse into a secretive modern world: that of the American overclass.

The New Republic Ingrid D. Rowland

For this intellectual complexity, The Rule of Four belongs to the same genre of action writing as Foucault's Pendulum, although Umberto Eco's novel is even more learned and much more clever.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

The real treat here is the process of discovery, and those passages are written with precision and bravado.

The New York Times Book Review Marilyn Stasio

A marvelous book with a dark Renaissance secret in its coded heart.

The New Yorker

The most riveting action sequences take place inside the mind.

Village Voice Ed Park

The secret pleasure here is the way the authors, lifelong friends, have imagined themselves into their novel, a rue-soaked tale of double lives and double meanings.

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Tom Roundell

This collaborative effort by two Princeton alumni does little to breathe life into the formulaic combination of academic intrigue and historical drama.

Entertainment Weekly Troy Patterson

Is it any wonder a novel that views literary interpretation as fancy codework should be strictly by the numbers?

The average user rating for this book is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Nancy T gave it a5:
My daughter gave me this book a couple monts ago. Every time I picked it up, I put it back down, thinking it had no vaule for me, a 70 year old woman. But, alas, I did finally get into it. All the while wonder why I was reading it. Skipping a lot of the translation gunk, I did find a couple things that have stayed in my mind. " Leonardo wrote that a painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all thing in nature are dark except where exposed by the light." and, "My father taught me something else.......: never invest yourself in anything so deeply that its failure could cost you your happiness." this is more than I get out of must books.

Neil L gave it a2:
The first half has been painfully dull and I doubt I'll bother with the second. The authors seem more intent on drowning this semi-autobiography with intellectual snobbery than actually developing a sense of intrigue or ultimately delivering a satisfying read. This book has been hailed as a "Da Vinci Code with brains." And yet, the smartest thing about this novel, as far as I can see, is the authors' decision to catch a ride on the Dam Brown's coat tails.

Simon K gave it a0:
Whichever Fleet Street hack supplied the cover quotation, referring to this turgid, clichéd, and self indulgent shelf-filler as "The Da Vinci Code for people with brains" ought to be sealed in a Florentine vault with only a copy of the "Rule of Four" for company. Forever. Low-calorie airport novel that it is, I genuinely wanted to know how "The Da Vinci Code" would end. With "The Rule of Four", I merely found myself asking "when", and later "if". To go into great detail on the subject of its inadequacies would be a joyless waste of time when I've already wasted enough actually reading it. Suffice it to say that any possibility of the dramatic tension, page-turning suspense or intellectual stimulation that the sleeve promises is destroyed by preposterous dialogue, the author's childlike attempts at character development, and page after page of pointless Princeton related trivia all related in a tone of cloying, smug nostalgia. As another reviewer has already pointed out - the only sane people who could possibly enjoy this novel are those who have been to Princeton. I didn't go to Princeton, but were that the case, I can scarcely credit that the spectacle of a group of unengaging, two dimensional, witless chimps waving manuscipts and clapping each others' backs in various Ivy League locations would qualify as my idea of entertainment. Avoid at all costs.

Cathy B gave it a7:
I liked the Princeton setting, the scholarship, even the mystery of the book in the past and the murder mystery of the present. What I didn't buy was the idea that the main character couldn't both work on the book with his roommate and have a life, girlfriend, etc. That seemed contrived, an unneccessary artifice to make a point that didn't need to be made. Otherwise, beautifully written, a good book.

Jonas A gave it an8:
Perhaps it is because I went to college at a university (not ivy league) where there were real steam tunnels, but I enjoyed this book very much. The characters are not shallow cartoon people, and the choices they face at their university reflect the same choices everyone is faced with in life when they are in that frightening state between adolescence and adulthood. In fact, the four roommates who are the main characters are remarkably sincere, thoughtful, and hardworking folks. I did think there were circumstances described in the plot where most students would have taken their stories to the campus police rather than considered the police as adversaries. But I can't fathom that someone might consider this book dull or boring.

Joe S gave it a9:
One of the best books i have read in a while. read it in 2 days. different than The Davinci code, but definitly on par with it. I enjoyed the discriptive writing and the in-depth character development.

Jeff B gave it a3:
The basic historical mystery of this novel is intriguing; however, the reader is forced to endure countless chapters of non-essential and non-interesting character development. The authors seemed to have a large word quota to meet. The pace is far, far from Dan Brown's.

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