Angels & Demons: A Review

I fell in love with Dan Brown's writing when I read The Da Vinci Code. As soon as I finished that book I went straight to the library to see if I could find anything else he had written. I must say I liked Angels & Demons even better than I liked TheDa Vinci Code.

Angels and Demons introduces Robert Langdon, the lead character in both books. He is a symbologist at Harvard. The plot follows Langdon's attempts to stop a secret society, the Illuminati, from destroying the Vatican City.

Maximilian Kohler is the director of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). He finds Leonardo Vetra, one of CERN's most respected physicists murdered, in his securely locked private office. His chest is branded with an Illuminati symbol, Kohler feels that police involvement would be a bad idea so he searches for help on the internet and contacts Langdon. Kohler feels that Langdon's expertise on the Illuminati will prove more useful than police involvement. Langdon is not at all interested when Kohler contacts him and hangs up when he receives a very disturbing picture of the victim through his fax machine. He is certain the Illuminati have long since disbanded. However, the seeming authenticity of the symbol bothers him and soon leads Langdon on an incredible trip. And all of us lucky readers get to go along.

When Langdon meets Kohler at CERN to view the body he also meets Vetra's adopted daughter, Vittoria. They have a discussion about the Big Bang theory in this excerpt:

Vittoria's expression became distant. "My point is that my father had always believed in God's involvement in the Big Bang. Even though science was unable to comprehend the divine moment of creation, he believed someday it would." She motioned sadly to a laser-printed memo tacked over her father's work area. "My dad used to wave that in my face every time I had doubts."

Langdon read the message.

"Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand."

Not surprisingly Vittoria soon joins Robert on his quest. This book is fast-paced and I could not put it down. There has been some criticism of Brown because his fictional account of antimatter is inaccurate and so is his claim that CERN invented the internet. Who cares? It's fiction! This book is well worth the ride and the willing suspension of disbelief.