Angels and Demons Book

The Illuminati were, allegedly, a secret society of artists and proto-scientists suppressed by the Church during the Counter-Reformation; they have featured in paranoid theories and thrillers ever since. Art historian Langdon is called in when a leading nuclear physicist is robbed, murdered and mutilated; along with the scientist's beautiful adopted daughter Vittoria, he finds himself involved in a treasure hunt against time. A lethal assassin has kidnapped four cardinals to torture them to death, and has planted an anti-matter bomb in the Vatican--at midnight, the Papal Conclave and the Sistine Chapel and the whole of Vatican City will go up in a flash of light, the vengeance of the Illuminati. Full of loopy conspiracy lore and some radical reinterpretations of the history of art and architecture, Angels and Demons is a switchback ride whose occasional absurdities never for a second reduce its high-adrenaline intensity. The bookish, brave Langdon, the clever Vittoria, the saintly young papal chamberlain who becomes their principal ally, the venal and yet oddly savvy BBC stringer who starts getting the killer's communiqués--all of these are involving and attractive characters who make us care about people and issues as much as we do about an ingenious plot. --Roz Kaveney