Inferno - Dan Brown

Dan Brown described Robert Langdon, the hero in his books, as 'a handsome man with thick brown hair'. Yet after the release of The Da Vinci Code movie, I couldn't help thinking about Tom Hanks, and this always ruins the image.

The title of this book means 'hell' and I imagined scary things happened in the story. However, it turned out the story was a Dan Brown standard, which involved run-and-chase scenes, puzzles to solve, and a plot to change the world. Most of the pages were spent to describe paintings, buildings, surroundings and objects. The story began with Robert Langdon woke up in a hospital with an amnesia, to make it more exciting, because after that, there was really not much to happen. This is one of light read books.

A scientist has hidden for a year to develop some kind of new virus, to reduce the world population. The WHO director who has been trying to find him, got clues that involve symbols from Dante's The Divine Comedy - because the scientist is a fan of Dante Alighieri - starts with a Botticeli's Map of Hell. Robert Langdon, a symbol expert, was invited to translate the symbols. He was flown to Florence, Italy, the home of Dante, and the place where the scientist jumped from Badia tower to his death. The virus has been hidden well and will be released at a scheduled time, and Langdon must find it before it's too late.

As usual, there is a young woman at Langdon's side during run-and-chase scenes. In this book, it's Sienna Brooks, a young doctor who treats Langdon in the hospital when he wakes up in the beginning of the story. It will be explained later why she keeps helping him.