INFERNO

BY DAN BROWN

INTRODUCTION

In Inferno, Dan Brown once again offers readers the same heady mix of history,
art, symbols, and high-wire tension that catapulted The Da Vinci Code, Angels &
Demons, and The Lost Symbol into international blockbusters. This time the stakes
are even higher, as Harvard Professor of symbology Robert Langdon must decode
the mystery surrounding a virus that has the power to alter the course of human
civilization – or possibly end it.
As the novel begins, Langdon wakes up from a terrifying nightmare in a hospital in
Florence, Italy. He doesn’t know how he got there or why he’s even in Florence.
He’s told he’s been shot and suffered a slight head wound that has resulted in
short-term amnesia. But as he learns more about what has happened to him,
amnesia turns out to be the least of his problems.
When a leather-clad assassin storms the hospital, Langdon is forced to flee with the
beautiful Dr. Sienna Brooks. Running from the assassin as well as the police,
Langdon and Brooks are drawn into a devious plot that centers on one of the
world’s most mysterious literary masterpieces, Dante’s Inferno.
Langdon find himself up against an imminent global catastrophe. Renowned
biochemist Bertrand Zobrist has created a virus that will be released in just twenty-
four hours and infect the entire human species. Zobrist is a Dante fanatic and he
has used references to Dante’s great poem as clues to the location and purpose of
the virus. Langdon draws upon his own extensive knowledge of Dante’s poem and
of Florence’s splendid art and architecture to decipher Zobrist’s riddle. But Will he
and sienna be able to find the virus on time?
Zobrist is motivated by the looming threat of unchecked population growth,
convinced that the human species will not survive unless there is another mass
extinction event on a scale of the Black Plague, which wiped out, in gruesome
fashion, one third of Europe’s thirteenth century population. Zobrist sees himself
as a savior, despised in his own time, shunned by the scientific establishment, and
hunted by Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey of the World Health Organization, but certain that
he will be thanked by future generations.
Zobrist is determined and extremely clever. The clues he leaves are maddeningly
complex, and Langdon must draw upon all his intelligence, erudition, and
ingenuity to decipher them. Unraveling that mystery takes Langdon far beyond
Italy into an ominous underworld, where a ‘‘chthonic monster’’ waits to forever
change the course of human history.
What makes Inferno so compelling is not only Dan Brown’s masterful ability to
spin a spellbinding tale but his skill at weaving a complex and pressing social issue
into the fabric of his narrative. The crucial problem of overpopulation, a problem
that does indeed pose a threat to human survival, adds a deeper moral and ethical
dimension to a book that offers all the page-turning pleasures readers of Dan
Brown have come to expect.