*NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING TOM HANKS AND FELICITY JONES* Robert Langdon wakes up in a Florence hospital with no clue how he got there. Another attack on his life makes it very clear - someone wants him dead. And fast. To survive, Langdon must work out who it is. And then he must answer the next question - why? 'Jam-packed with tricks . . . A book length scavenger hunt Mr Brown creates so energetically' New York Times
Police investigating the murder of the curator of the Louvre are baffled by the prescence of a series of codes left alongside the body - They are stunned to find that the clues lead back in history to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and a centuries-old secret society.
When a world renowned scientist is found brutally murdered in a Swiss research facility, a Harvard professor, Robert Langdon, is summoned to identify the mysterious symbol seared onto the dead man's chest. His baffling conclusion: it is the work of the Illuminati, a secret brotherhood presumed extinct for nearly four hundred years - reborn to continue their bitter vendetta against their sworn enemy, the Catholic church. In Rome, the college of cardinals assembles to elect a new pope. Yet somewhere within the walls of the Vatican, an unstoppable bomb of terrifying power relentlessly counts down to oblivion. While the minutes tick away, Langdon joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to decipher the labyrinthine trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome to the long-forgotten Illuminati lair - a secret refuge wherein lies the only hope for the Vatican. But with each revelation comes another twist, another turn in the plot, which leaves Langdon and Vetra reeling and at the mercy of a seemingly invisible enemy... --back cover