Inferno by Dan Brown

Why did I want to read (listen to) this book?  I have a friend who just recently read it with her book club.  It was her first Dan Brown and when she was done she was thrilled with it.  “A real thinker” she told me.  I downloaded it on audio and as the story pulled me in… I remembered, I really enjoy Dan Browns writing.  How could I have forgotten?”

Sheila

 

Synopsis:  Robert Langdon (our hero of such literacy wonders as The Davinchi Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol) finds himself once again pulled into a horrific plan on deceit and “God playing” centered this time around “Dante’s Inferno” .

When he awakens in a hospital bed not knowing where he is or how he got there, the pieces start to fall into place quickly that Robert has stumbled into something big and there are people – powerful people who do not want him anywhere near the plans they are making.  When Robert takes a look out the window of his hospital room and sees an architecture piece that just can not be… he realizes….

“Toto.. we are not in Kansas anymore.”

As the pieces start to fit together Robert Langdon is not sure who he can trust.  What he thinks is true can possibly be just a play on his lack of memory over the past few days, but as Langdon starts to see more clearly the truth is both fascinatingly outrageous as it is frightening.  He has a very short window to move forward on and try to stop a genius of a mad man from altering the worlds population in a effort to save us all….

 

 

 

 

Whoa.  Double whoa.

Within minutes of getting into this audio, I was hooked.  Paul Michael does an incredible job with the narration, but  if you are more of a book person, I think you will be just as quickly hooked.

Dan Brown does not mess around with a long drawn out intro to Inferno.  Instead, it opens with a rush of energy and we as readers/listeners are instantly engaged in the “What happened?  Who…. wait….” and all in a good heart pumping way. 

There is something fascinating about the under belly of the earth and those who dwell there.  I have always enjoyed how Dan Brown can take an existing piece or art or history and wrap a story around it so engaging you start to believe that this was always part of the history of the piece and it would be easy to associate one with the other from this day forward.  Remember readers – while Dan Brown writes with a fascinating pen… he is writing fiction…. great fiction.  But fiction all the same.

Inferno moves with a rapid pulse and I found it so engaging and so interesting.  I have heard of Dante’s Inferno, but knew little about it. 

 

From Wikepedia:

Inferno (Italian for “Hell”) is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.

I thoroughly enjoyed Inferno.  Never predictable when I did find out what was going on and how it took my breath away.  There are pieces of Inferno that make you think “what if”.  There is so much more I would like to share about Inferno, but it is a pleasure to read or listen to it fresh with no pre-thoughts so I am going to leave it at this. Do you need to have read the other Langdon books to understand this one?  Nope.  All of the books mentioned above are incredible stand alones.

 

 

If you would like to dig deeper into this one, I am rolling out the Spoiler Button which when pressed, will take you to a new page for those of us who have read Inferno and want to talk about it more.