Order from
amazon.com!
Angels & Demons
Rating: 
Author: Dan Brown
Published: 2000
Review by: CL7 Kali D'or
Have you read The Da Vinci Code?. I did, 2 days after it hit the book shelves and the last time I looked, it was still on the top of the NY Times Book List after 75 weeks. What I didn't realize until I read Deception Point (see that review in here too) was that Dan Brown had written a book 3 years ago that was a prequel. That one didn't really get recognized until DaVinci Code hit the top of the list!
So, read this one FIRST if you think you want to read the BIG bestseller.
Angels & Demons introduces us to Robert Langdon, a professor and expert on religious symbology and iconology at Harvard University. His expertise and studies have gained him an international reputation in both the academic and religious arenas worldwide.
He gets a middle-of-the-night phone call from a stranger requesting his immediate assistance with a murder. Initially refusing the demand for his help, he receives a fax that immediately gets his attention - The Illuninati have resurfaced.
Taken to Geneva by extraordinary means, he is met by Maximillian Kohler, the Director of CERN, a nuclear research facility where a member of his staff has been brutally murdered and branded with the sign of the Illuminati.
This order has a long history as assassins going back to the 1500's when the Church and Science were at odds. The Church was totally against any science that could disprove the doctrins of the Bible, creationism, God and all else that the Catholic faith was based on. The Illuminati was created to protect scientists and forward thinkers from the Church. Galileo was one of the founders and was instrumental is creating a secret and safe haven where mystics, alchemists, cultists, Muslims, Jews and others hunted by the Catholic Church could meet, communicate and hide.
Unfortunately, as time went by and the Church stepped up its persecution (The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind), the Order turned to a darker influence and retaliated against the Church with the same fervor - murder, torture, kidnapping, death became the operative strategy. The bacame a Satanic sect. And then, they disappeared. Or did they?
The murdered Dr. Leonardo Vetra was working on a super collider project that created anti-matter. He has a daughter, Vittoria. Together, she and Robert Langdon travel to Rome and the Vatican to try and solve the problem. Of course, there is something happening there - the Pope has died and the Cardinals are gathering to elect a new one. And the Illuminati have other plans. Something is hidden in Vatican City!
As in all good thrillers, it is hard to figure out who is or isn't the good guys, But we do know the assassin is out there and he is killing cardinals with a very specific agenda. And there are other players who we really have to take a look at.
There are three who really stood out in the book. Captain Olivetti, the man in charge of the Swiss Guards, protectors of Vatican City; Carlo Ventresca, the Pope's camerlenge (Chief of Staff) and Cardinal Mortati, who is in charge of the election of the new Pope. Each has a very special role in the story line that remains undefined until the last minute. They are exceedingly well written and surprising in their motivations.
No, I didn't figure out the end till I got to it, and it did surprise me! Thats what makes this a heck of a great book. Mix religion, an assassin, the Pope, anti-matter and a city filled with historical monuments and churches and you have a helter-skelter dash from point to point trying to save lives, solve the clues and save the center of Catholocism. Even a lapsed Presbyterian can get caught up in this one!
Title: Angels & Demons
Author: Dan Brown
Review by: CL7 Kali D'or
| 
