Book: Angels & Demons - Dan Brown

The first book by the acclaimed author of Da Vinci's Code, is it really good? Well, no doubt I had enjoyed Da Vinci's Code, I had a little reservation about Dan Brown's writing style, as I am probably more engrossed about the facts & myths presented by Brown in the book than his storyline, style and pacing. Thus, I decided to pick up this first book by him to see if I can "explore" deeper into his style.

Well, suffice to say, I finished the book in about a week. Considering that I had actually started on another book (The Family by Mario Puzo), which I dropped, and started on Angels & Demons, I must say that it had been an engrossing read.

The book tells of the story of Prof. Robert Langdon being summoned to CERN, a high-tech research facility in Switzerland to help investigation on a murder, where the corpse of the dead was "branded" by sign of a secret cult, the Illuminati, thought to have been disappeared centuries ago. Together with the daughter of the deceased scientist, Langdon then travelled to Rome and Vatican City, where the Pope has just passed away, and the election of a new Pope is to commence. But the threat of Illuminati threaten to put the entire foundation of the Catholic church in disarray, with 4 top cardinals being kidnap and the Vatican itself is being threaten by a high-tech bomb.

Again, Dan Brown has shown great ability to meld historic art, ancient believes, religious topics and modern technologies into an intriguing storyline. Although most of the paragraphs are used to describe the environment, the architecture and the structures, he managed to pace the book in a way that makes you want to keep turning the pages. With some twists and turns, the book keeps you hanging to find out who is the villain behind it all.

Now, will his 2 other books be as good a read? Time to find out soon.


Rating: 4 of 5

P/S: Talk about coincidence, when I bought this book and The Family by Mario Puzo together, I didn't realized that both books will touch on the Vatican, the Pope, the process to elect a Pope (known as the conclave). The Family talks about the conclave in early 17th century (when there are only 5 or 6 cardinals) while Angels & Demons' conclave is set in the 21st century (there are 165 cardinals). Just one of those moments that makes you ponder...