I stopped with the Dollenganger series for a bit and finished up a book I had been working on for a bit. I’m bad for starting a book, getting bored with it, and then starting another book. In fact, I had actually started the third book in the VC Andrews series when I decided I want to take a break, but I digress.

I know, all the book reviews I have done so far have been on books that have been published for a while. It will probably stay like that for a while, too. There are a lot of books I haven’t read, and once I do, I like to share my thoughts. As always, there may be spoilers, so if you haven’t read this book yet, or you plan to, you have been warned.

I had started this book a couple of years ago but stopped reading it because I couldn’t get into it. About a month ago, I decided I would try to finish it. This time something had changed. The book caught my attention and I had it finished in no time. I don’t know what happened, but I’m glad it did. Angels and Demons is a book written by Dan Brown and introduces the character of Robert Langdon that shows up in four subsequent books. It all takes place with a single day and deal heavily with symbology, the Illuminati, and the Catholic church.

Langdon is contacted by the director of CERN, Max Kohler, for help in a murder case. This is due to the fact that one of the scientists at CERN was found dead with the ambigram Illuminati burned into his chest, and Langdon is well versed in Illuminati history. They quickly discover that the killers used his victim’s eye to gain access to his lab and steal his newest creation, antimatter. This substance is more powerful than any bomb man has created. Leonardo Vetra, the deceased, daughter shows up, Vittoria. She and Langdon a whisked away to Vatican City where the canister of antimatter has been located by camera. They don’t actually know where the canister is, but they have less than 24 hours to find it before it destroys the city.

As the story progresses, they discover that the four Preferiti have been kidnapped just before conclave was to begin. Robert believes the Illuminati is to blame and he leads Vittoria and the Swiss Guards on a chase around Rome to find the Hassasin.

I’m not going to go into every little detail of how the story goes, you can read it for yourself, but I will tell you that they don’t rescue a single Preferiti. Robert almost saves the last, though.

The symbology and history of the Illuminati and the Catholic church are interesting enough to make you not want to put down the book. Then the actual suspense of not knowing if they will save the Vatican as well as who the identity of Janus is will make you stay up all night to finish. I honestly believed that it all had to do with the Illuminati. I never thought that the person behind it was a man of religion.

Camerlengo Ventresca seemed like such a nice guy. He was willing to bend a few rules to give Robert the ability to find the kidnapped Cardinals. Then it turns out he was completely crazy. He hated science so much that he killed the pope, and then had another angry man kill six other people, attempt to kill Robert, and nearly rape Vittoria. And he did this all in the name of God (really?)

I knew there had to be a person on the inside because there were too many things that happened inside Vatican City for an outsider to do it all. I honestly thought it was Commander Olivetti because he fought Robert so much.

Once I got within the last 100 pages I seriously didn’t know how many more twists and turns the book could take, but damned if that wasn’t where all the twists happened. I followed along with Robert better than I have ever followed the main character. It felt like we were one.

I do really want to go to Rome now and see all of the statues and obelisks that were written about in the book. Before you wonder, I haven’t watched the movie, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it see how well they kept to the book.

I really don’t have too much more to say about the book other than you should read it if you haven’t. It’s a really great book and extremely entertaining.