Product Description

When a scientist is found brutally murdered, Harvard professor Robert Langdon is asked to identify the mysterious symbol seared onto the dead man's chest. Realising it must be the work of the Illuminati - an ancient secret brotherhood sworn against Catholicism - the race is on to prevent a tragedy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1644 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It takes guts to write a novel that combines an ancient secret brotherhood, the Swiss Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, a papal conclave, mysterious ambigrams, a plot against the Vatican, a mad scientist in a wheelchair, particles of anti-matter, jets that can travel 15,000 miles per hour, crafty assassins, a beautiful Italian physicist and a Harvard professor of religious iconology. It takes talent to make that novel anything but ridiculous. Kudos to Dan Brown (Digital Fortress) for achieving the nearly impossible. Angels and Demons is a no-holds-barred, pull-out-all-the-stops, breathless tangle of a thriller--think Katherine Neville's The Eight (but cleverer) or Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum (but more accessible).

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is shocked to find proof that the legendary secret society, the Illuminati--dedicated since the time of Galileo to promoting the interests of science and condemning the blind faith of Catholicism--is alive, well, and murderously active. Brilliant physicist Leonardo Vetra has been murdered, his eyes plucked out and the society's ancient symbol branded upon his chest. His final discovery, anti-matter, the most powerful and dangerous energy source known to man, has disappeared--only to be hidden somewhere beneath Vatican City on the eve of the election of a new pope. Langdon and Vittoria, Vetra's daughter and colleague, embark on a frantic hunt through the streets, churches and catacombs of Rome, following a 400-year-old trail to the lair of the Illuminati, to prevent the incineration of civilisation.

Brown seems as much juggler as author--there are lots and lots of balls in the air in this novel, yet Brown manages to hurl the reader headlong into an almost surreal suspension of disbelief. While the reader might wish for a little more sardonic humour from Langdon and a little less bombastic philosophising on the eternal conflict between religion and science, these are less fatal flaws than niggling annoyances--readers should have no trouble skimming past them and immersing themselves in a heck of a good read. "Brain candy" it may be, but it's tasty. --Kelly Flynn, Amazon.com

San Francisco Chronicle
‘A breathless, real-time adventure...Exciting, fast-paced, with an unusually high IQ’

Bookbrowse.com
'Part thriller, part mystery, and all action. A highly entertaining, page turning thriller'

Customer Reviews

A dry run for the Da Vinci Code
I read this book after having read the Da Vinci Code. Although it was written earler, before the hype surrounding Dan Brown's work had reached such hysterical proportions, Dan Brown's paranoia about the supposed dark deds of the Church is well developed. The action speeds along at a dizzy pace in an enjoyable, if wholly implausible, romp through Switzerland, Rome and the Vatican in a desperate race against time to recover stolen anti-matter which has been turned into a bomb. As in the Da Vinci Code, symbologist Robert Langdon is pitted against the assassin of a secret society (this time the Illuminati which, surprise surprise, was thought to have died out) as he solves a set of baffling clues to save the day and win the girl, without so much as a break for nature.

Again, full marks for pace and action but rather lower marks for accuracy and credibility. A more genuinely gripping thriller is, for example, The Surgeon by Tess Gerrittsen.

What the...?
I will admit that I liked and dare I say it, enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. A lot of reviewers seem to have got the right hump with this yarn! I say no more on this matter because after reading this on the strength of The Da Vinci Code, I got the hump myself!! If you read this after the Da Vinci code, you will be annoyed by it too! Because you'll realise you were fooled the first time round with a tale of complete gibberish. Easy to read is not really easy to enjoy??!!
But this is a story that grips you in a way that an annoying relative does, you feel you have to be polite to them but at the end of the day they are essentially boring and full of 'poo'.
This tale, with the Illuminati theme, is complete rubbish. One of the Da Vinci reviewers said they felt like they were reading a script for a Hollywood 'Blockbuster' (which it will no doubt become thanks to Ron 'Cheese' Howard'.
But if this story ever becomes a film, it will be laughed out of the worlds' multi-plexes. It is an outrage! I was almost sucked in right up until the pope's 'assistant' ( I forget his name..Carni...Corny..., it's forgettable) became a looony!!
The ending is the worst I think I've ever seen, it pushes the boundaries if acceptable fantasy to the point of, well, the ridiculous. Please don't let this tat become a film!! That sounds silly but I must advise........read it! I read it, so why shouldn't you? Opinions are interesting but mine of Angels and Demons is that it is completely and utterly ridiculous. It annoyed me when I read the last page, it was so obviously a 'make me into a film' story. BUUUUT...if you can suspend pompous angst at badly written books like I was unable to, then give it a go! Why not! You'll finish it in a few hours. And then you'll see...!! You'll put it down and mutter to yourself "what the..."

Further adventures of the claustrophobic cryptologist..
I suppose it's inevitable that although this is the first Robert Langdon thriller, plenty of readers are going to do what I did and read the Da Vinci Code before this one. It actually doesn't matter at all: not only do the two books hardly reference each other, but they share a great many similarities in their basic plot structure. In both novels the story centres around an ancient secret society headed by a well-known historical figure tied in to a modern killing spree enacted by a ruthless assassin taking orders from a shadowy, unseen mastermind. In both cases a Harvard cryptologist teams up with a female relative of the dead man and is forced into a life-or-death race to follow coded clues and unearth an ancient secret. It's written in fluent thrillerese, with short, punchy chapters and rudimentary character development (the only things we ever really learn about Robert Langdon are that he's single, claustrophobic, and good at swimming), but isn't afraid to confront big themes head on: in this case the perennial conflict between science and religion. The story stretches credibility almost to breaking point (more so even than the Da Vinci Code), and if you in any way have any trouble suspending your disbelief then it almost certainly isn't for you.

The first hundred pages or so serve as a kind of a test in this regard: if you can get through the X-Men academy depiction of CERN as the kind of place that has its own private space-plane and a special agreement with the Swiss government to waive passport controls, and where two researchers can carry out particle experiments and produce large quantities of antimatter without any of their colleagues actually noticing, then you will be well prepared for the rest of the book.

Dan Brown's real skill lies in the thoroughness of his background research, and his ability to bend it just enough to weave a compelling conspiracy. Even now I'm half-convinced that perhaps Galileo really did found a secret society, and that the legendary Path of Illumination may actually exist in Rome. This part at least is very cleverly done, and it's probably equal to the Da Vinci Code in this respect.

I really enjoyed reading this in a guilty kind of way - it's easy to pick up, easy to read, and hard to put down. There are some satisfying twists along the way and the ending caught me by surprise. Plenty of it rings false - for example the notion that the world's media would have no interest in a papal conclave, or the distinctly un-British depiction of a plucky BBC reporter named Gunther Glick (described as Hugh Grant on lithium) who dreams of winning a Pulitzer. But I imagine this is a book that you will either love or hate, according to whether you consider Dan Brown a writer of snappy, intelligent but undemanding thrillers, or a purveyor of dangerous, subversive and wrong-headed ideas.

Art historians, cardinals and theoretical physicists should avoid this like the plague.