The Rule of Four - Description of What is was.

So.. here's the breakdown.

The Rule of Four is a mystery/detective book, similar to the Da Vinci Code. It opens(close to the beginning at least...though not the first page) with a murder - making it a thriller- but that doesn't dominate the entire book. Rather, most of the book is dedicated to solving the mystery/puzzle of the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI.

The main charcters Tom and Paul are very intelligent and are the hero's of the story, much like Robert Langdon is in the Da Vinci code.

Just connecting: The story is thriller-ish and mysytery because of the murder in the beginning of the book. It creates a sense of danger and urgency since the lives of the main characters are at risk at times and are involved. This creates the "fear" and "adrenaline" in the book, which all tie into the "surprizing" conclusion at the end. And, actually, Paul and Tom don't go around hunting down the murderer, but rather stumble upon it when they are looking for the necessary clue to crack the final message of the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI.

The rest of the novel, and the "mystery" part of it comes from solving the puzzle of the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI (Which is some long and famous book from the middle ages/renaissance? don't remember). Here's where some people probably draw another parallel to the DaVinci Code. Much like how Brown created the story of teh Holy Grail, Caldwal and Thomason created a mystery from the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI. (It was something about having riddles worked into the text/story that would lead to some great treasure ... that the author was beign secretive about).

And yeah, basically allthe "intelligent' and detective worked involved the solving of the riddles which were indeed very interesting at times. Most of the novel takes place as recollections - they are the memories of Tom and the months before the murder where he describes what it was like to work on the book - almost as if he's giving us background information on it. Then after the background/story/most of the mystery of the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI is solved we go back to the present were they have to deal with getting the last piece to solve the puzzle and fighting for thier lives'ish.

In the end, when they solve the puzzle they learn of the story and life of the narrator and find out that it is the direction to some underground tomb that stores great artwork and pieces from the renaissance.