The Rule of Four (Random House--The Dial Press)

In The Rule of Four, Tom Sullivan is drawn into a 500 year old mystery by his roommate Paul Harris's senior thesis over the Hypnerotomachia, an obscure Renaissance text.  (The text was also an obsession of Tom's father's, so Tom already has ties to the book).  In his thesis, Paul is attempting to unlock the secrets of the extensive piece.  As Paul and Tom get closer to the truth, other people stand in their way--the professor who wants to claim Paul's work as his own, a grad student who also wants to take Paul's thesis, the police who think that Paul is responsible for a crime, and a man whose own academic career was ruined because of the Hypnerotomachia. 

In spite of the fact, that this could have been a really great work, it really wasn't.  The beginning was terribly slow, and I did not get into the book until around chapter 10.  When the book stepped up the pace, I read fairly quickly for the most part, unless the authors were giving me backstory, which they did frequently and sometimes I had difficulty telling that there was a switch to the past occurring and had to go back and reread for the story to make sense.  I was also a little dissatisfied with the ending, which I suppose has more to do with taste than actual style.

All in all, this is not a book I would recommend to others.