Ian Caldwell

Dustin Thomason

A regra de quatro

Il codice del quattro

For decades, December 21, 2012, has been a touchstone for doomsayers worldwide. It is the date, they claim, when the ancient Maya calendar predicts the world will end. In Los Angeles, two weeks before, all is calm. Dr. Gabriel Stanton takes his usual morning bike ride, drops off the dog with his ex-wife, and heads to the lab where he studies incurable prion diseases for the CDC. His first phone call is from a hospital resident who has an urgent case she thinks he needs to see. Meanwhile, Chel Manu, a Guatemalan American researcher at the Getty Museum, is interrupted by a desperate, unwelcome visitor from the black market antiquities trade who thrusts a duffel bag into her hands. By the end of the day, Stanton, the foremost expert on some of the rarest infections in the world, is grappling with a patient whose every symptom confounds and terrifies him. And Chel, the brightest young star in the field of Maya studies, has possession of an illegal artifact that has miraculously survived the centuries intact - a priceless codex from a lost city of her ancestors. This extraordinary record, written in secret by a royal scribe, seems to hold the answer to her life's work and to one of history's great riddles - why the Maya kingdoms vanished overnight.

A Novel

12.21

Depuis 1499, des savants tentent de décoder un chef-d'œuvre de la Renaissance, Le Songe de Poliphile. Ecrit en cinq langues, orné de gravures érotiques et violentes, ce texte a résisté à tous les assauts, brisé des destins, des amitiés et des vies. Pourtant, deux étudiants de Princeton osent s'y mesurer et, au fil de messages cachés, découvrent l'histoire d'un prince du Quattrocento et l'existence d'une crypte secrète qui recèle des trésors inouïs. Ils croyaient échapper à la malédiction de cette énigme. Mais pour la défendre, certains sont prêts à mourir et à tuer.

La règle de quatre

Tom Sullivan is about to graduate from Princeton. He's intelligent and popular, but haunted by the violent death several years earlier of his father, an academic who devoted his life to studying one of the rarest, most complex and most valuable books in the world. Since its publication in 1499, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has baffled scholars who have tried to understand its many mysteries. Coded in seven languages, the text is at once a passionate love story, an intricate mathematical labyrinth, and a tale of arcane brutality. Paul Harris, Tom's roommate, has deeply personal reasons of his own for wanting to unveil the secrets the book hides. When a long-lost diary surfaces, it seems the two friends have found the key to the labyrinth - but when a fellow researcher is murdered only hours later, they suddenly find themselves in great danger. And what they discover embedded in the text stuns them: a narrative detailing the passion of a Renaissance prince, a hidden crypt, and a secret worth dying to protect.

The Rule of Four

Belladonna Dokumentet

Rule of Four

Tom Sullivan, about to graduate from Princeton, is haunted by the violent death of his father, an academic who devoted his life to studying one of the rarest, most complex and most valuable books in the world. Coded in seven languages, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an intricate mathematical mystery and a tale of love and arcane brutality, has baffled scholars since 1499. Tom's friend Paul is similarly obsessed and when a long-lost diary surfaces, they finally seem to make a breakthrough. But only hours later, a fellow researcher is murdered and the two friends suddenly find themselves in great danger. Working desperately to expose the book's secret, they slowly uncover a Renaissance tale of passion and blood, a hidden crypt and a secret worth dying to protect.

The Rule Of Four

Shortly before December 21, 2012, a CDC expert encounters a confounding medical mystery, and a talented Mayan scholar comes into possession of a priceless codex with terrifying implications for modern civilization.

Chris P. Rolls

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