Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

‘Angels and Demons’ is the first novel by Dan Brown to feature Harvard professor of Art History and world renowned symbologist Robert Langdon.

Langdon receives a phone call in the middle of the night from CERN Director Maximillion Kohler. One of CERN’s top physicists Leonardo Vetra has been murdered and branded with a symbol that has been lost for hundreds of years. It seems that the Illuminati, presumed to have vanished hundreds of years ago, have returned.

The Illuminati started as a group of intellectuals and featured men such as Galileo. They were frowned upon by the Catholic Church. As the Illuminati became more radical, their war with the church escalated. Now they have devised a plot to destroy the Church by blowing up the Vatican.

Langdon, along with Vetra’s beautiful daughter Vittoria, travel to the Vatican to help stop its destruction. But when they arrive, they find that a new Pope is about to be elected and the four leading candidates have been kidnapped. The illuminati plan to murder one per hour till the time of the explosion.

What follows is a wild ride through the streets of Rome and the secret rooms of the Vatican as Robert, Vittoria, the previous Pope’s Chamberlain and members of the Swiss Guard try to save the missing Cardinals, save the Vatican and stop a clever killer.

This novel was certainly an exciting ride. There was some fantastic art and architecture featured in the Vatican and the rest of Rome. And while some of the story was a bit far-fetched, it was certainly entertaining.

Langdon was a very likeable character and the camerlengo was very captivating while Kohler came across as the perfect villain and Vittoria was a bit ornamental.

Some of Dan Brown’s descriptions were a bit over-the-top. But I enjoyed this novel and I’m looking forward to reading (re-reading after many years) ‘The Da Vinci Code’.

Book Published 2000

See a full list of books by Dan Brown