Angels & Demons is a bestselling mystery novel by Dan Brown. Published in 2000, it introduces the character Robert Langdon, who is also the principal character of Brown's subsequent, better-known novel The Da Vinci Code. It also shares many stylistic element with the better known novel, such as conspiracies of secret societies, a single day time frame and the Roman Catholic Church. The story involves a conflict between an ancient group, the Illuminati, and the Roman Catholic Church.

The Plot:

Angels & Demons follows Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, as he tries to stop what seems to be the Illuminati, a legendary secret society, from destroying the Vatican City with the newly-discovered power of antimatter.

CERN director Maximilian Kohler discovers one of the facility's most respected physicists, Leonardo Vetra, murdered in his own secured, private quarters at the facility. His chest is branded with a symbol — the word "Illuminati", formed as an ambigram, using a hot iron. Instead of calling the police, Kohler researches the topic on the Internet and finally gains contact with Professor Langdon, an expert on the Illuminati. Kohler requests his assistance in uncovering the murderer.

What Langdon finds at the murder scene frightens him: the symbol appears to be authentic, and the legendary secret society, long thought to be defunct, seems to have resurfaced. Kohler calls Vetra's adopted daughter Vittoria to the scene and it is later revealed that the Illuminati has also stolen a canister containing a quarter of a gram of antimatter — an extremely deadly substance that could destroy an entire area when in contact with matter. When charged with electricity at CERN, the canister's magnetic field controls the drop of antimatter to float in a pure vacuum, ensuring safety; but when it is taken away from its electricity supply, the canister will automatically switch to using its back-up battery, which lasts for only 24 hours. The horrible truth is that now the Illuminati has put the stolen canister somewhere in Vatican City, with a security camera in front of it as its digital clock counts down to the explosion.


A rotational ambigram of "Illuminati" similar to the one used in Angels and Demons.It turns out that the papal conclave is being held that night, making it the perfect time for the Illuminati to hide the antimatter inside the Vatican and destroy all the important people in the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Mortati, host of the election, discovers that the four preferiti, cardinals who are the top picks in the current Pope election, are missing. Actually, they have been kidnapped by the Hassassin in the book, who is also the killer of Leonardo Vetra. Langdon and Vittoria therefore set off to the Vatican in hopes to find the killer and retrieve the antimatter, but Kohler succumbs to illness and cannot go with them.

After they arrive, their search is assisted by Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca and the Vatican Swiss Guards, including Commander Olivetti, Captain Rocher and Lieutenant Chartrand. Clues found in the Vatican Archives take Langdon and Vittoria through many tourist attractions in Rome following the so-called "path of illumination", as they seek out locations which the book calls the "Altars of Science". Each altar relates to one of the classical elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) which were once considered to be the only constituents of all matter.

At each altar, one of the four cardinals kidnapped by the assassin, is murdered by a method appropriate to that particular altar's element – Cardinal Ebner is killed by having dirt stuffed down his throat while buried up to his waist in an underground crypt (Earth); Cardinal Lamassé is killed by being stabbed in the lungs in St. Peter's Square (Air); Cardinal Guidera is strung out over a fire to burn to death (Fire); and Cardinal Baggia is drowned in a massive fountain (Water) – all branded with an ambigram of that element's name. The media are alerted to these killings and later it is discovered that the previous Pope was murdered by overdosing a drug called Heparin. This alerts Vittoria to perform the world's first autopsy on a Pope – and she finds his tongue to be black, a sure sign of Heparin overdose.

Afterwards, the Hassassin kills Olivetti and kidnaps Vittoria, but Langdon journeys to save her. During a scuffle with the Hassassin, Langdon figures that Janus, the Illuminati leader, disguised, is coming to brand the camerlengo with a sixth brand. When Langdon is about to lose the fight, Vittoria escapes and attacks the Hassassin. With Langdon's help, they manage to throw him from the tower's balcony, killing him. Maximillian Kohler is revealed to be the 11th hour Samaritan, also an anti-Catholic. Langdon strongly believes that Kohler is Janus, on a suicide mission to kill the camerlengo.

Langdon and Vittoria arrive in time to save the camerlengo, who has been branded with the Illuminati Diamond, an ambigram that shows the names of all the elements written together in a perfect square. When the door is forced open during the meeting, it is seen that Kohler is brandishing a pistol at the camerlengo. The Swiss Guard shoots Kohler and Captain Rocher is also killed by Lieutenant Chartrand, after the camerlengo calls the Captain an Illuminatus. Kohler gives Langdon a camcorder, telling him to give it to the media. Langdon puts it in his pocket, but doesn't intend to give it out as he believes it is a message preaching the good of science and the evils of religion. As the camerlengo is transported to the hospital, he suddenly seems to receive a message from God, telling him where the antimatter is. He discovers it upon St. Peter's real tomb, and, accompanied by Langdon, rushes the antimatter to a helicopter, in hopes of getting it high enough to avoid damaging the Vatican. They succeed, and the camerlengo jumps out of the helicopter, landing safely at the Vatican using a parachute, which leads people to believe in this as a "miracle". This causes everyone, including the remaining cardinals, to cheer and call out the camerlengo's name.

Meanwhile, Robert Langdon also escapes and lands in the Tiber River near Tiber Island, which is famous for its reputation as an island blessed with miracles of healing. One of the nurses reveals that the camcorder given to Langdon by Kohler is continuously playing the same message over and over again, and it seems it was not a sermon about science and religion, but a revelation about Janus, Kohler, and the camerlengo. Langdon is so incensed by this that he boards a helicopter which takes him straight to the Vatican, where he plays the camcorder. It is then that it is finally revealed that the camerlengo was Janus — he tricked the Hassassin into believing the Illuminati were still active, and the brands he used were confiscated and hidden deep inside the Vatican long ago. Kohler had contacted Rocher and told him the truth about the camerlengo, allowing Kohler to meet with the camerlengo alone, with a pistol in his wheelchair. In the diary of Leonardo Vetra, it is said that Vetra met with the Pope, the only other person who knew about Vetra's discovery before he was murdered.

Kohler, through use of psychology, gets the camerlengo to admit to hiring the Hassassin to murder Vetra. Kohler says then that there is no escape after the camerlengo had admitted to his sin, but the camerlengo laughs and simply says, "Confessing your sins is the escape." He then brands himself with the Illuminati Diamond, screaming with pain, alerting the Swiss Guards, who kill Kohler. After being shown this, everyone in the Sistine Chapel is struck dumb, and Cardinal Mortati realizes that it means the camerlengo had murdered the Pope. The camerlengo responds to this by calling the Pope "a vile liar" before telling everybody that the Pope had fathered a child and had broken his vow of chastity. Mortati responds by revealing that although the Pope had loved a woman, he had not broken any vow as his child was born through artificial insemination. Then the final revelation comes — the Pope's child is none other than Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca. Struck dumb with the horrifying implications of this, the camerlengo flees and eventually commits suicide on the balcony by self-immolation. His ashes are collected by Mortati and laid to rest in the Pope's sarcophagus. Mortati turns out to be eligible for the papal election and is voted to be the new Pope. To the amazement of other, however, it is revealed by a British news reporter that two Popes had been elected instead of one. According to law, the Pope was chosen by unanimous decision by the cardinals and any servant of the church (not just cardinals) was eligible for election. When the cardinals shouted out the camerlengo's name, they unknowingly elected him Pope. Many people debate whether the ending to this story is actually ethical or not (seeing as, in the end, Ventresca got what he wanted).

Langdon and Vittoria then stay at the Hotel Bernini. Lieutenant Chartrand delivers a letter and package to Langdon from the new Pope, Mortati himself. The package is the Illuminati Diamond brand, which is loaned indefinitely to Langdon.

Adam Cassidy is twenty-six and a low-level employee at a high-tech corporation who hates his job. When he manipulates the system to do something nice for a friend, he finds himself charged with a crime. Corporate Security gives him a choice: prison—or become a spy in the headquarters of their chief competitor, Trion Systems.

They train him. They feed him inside information. Now, at Trion, he's a star, skyrocketing to the top. He finds he has talents he never knew he possessed. He's rich, drives a Porsche, lives in a fabulous apartment, and works directly for the CEO. He's dating the girl of his dreams.

His life is perfect. And all he has to do to keep it that way is betray everyone he cares about and everything he believes in.

But when he tries to break off from his controllers, he finds he's in way over his head, trapped in a world in which nothing is as it seems and no one can really be trusted.

And then the real nightmare begins. . . .

"Harlan Coben has been at this for a while, now. He was good, maybe great, right out of the gate, and over the course of eight books he has garnered a mantleful of awards --- a trifecta, actually, with the Edgar, The Shamus, and The Anthony --- getting better and better with each successive novel. As good as books such as ONE FALSE MOVE and TELL NO ONE were, however, there was always the feeling that he was just warming up, that his best work was ahead of him. With the publication of GONE FOR GOOD, it can be announced that he if he hasn't reached "best," he's rounding third and more than halfway home. With GONE FOR GOOD, Coben aims for the moon and stars and hits his targets, every one.

Reading GONE FOR GOOD is like playing one of those role-playing video games for the first time sans a guidebook or a 13-year-old who can warn you what's coming. You never know. Its protagonist is Will Klein, younger brother to Ken. Eleven years prior to the events described in GONE FOR GOOD, Will's ex-girlfriend was found raped and murdered in her basement. Ken was the prime suspect; he vanished, seemingly, into thin air. Will has never given up on the premise that his brother is innocent and still alive. He discovers, on the death of their mother, that Ken is indeed alive.

When Will is suddenly and abruptly deserted by his current girlfriend, she leaves behind evidence that she is not at all the person he thought she was --- and that she may somehow be connected, however improbably, to Ken. Ken's disappearance, and apparent reappearance, are also connected to a couple of friends from high school, one of whom is a low-profile but highly placed organized crime figure. The other is a mysterious, deadly figure known as The Ghost --- a frightening character who is unbalanced and unstoppable. Will is caught between these acquaintances from his brother's past and an FBI agent who is motivated as much by revenge as by a desire to see justice done, while at the same time wanting to solve the mystery of his girlfriend's mysterious, abrupt disappearance.

Coben, along the way, constantly keeps the reader guessing. The reader knows only what Will Klein knows --- and everything Will knows is wrong. Surprises and shocks are scattered throughout GONE FOR GOOD, from the beginning to the final paragraph; the biggest mistake that readers can make with this novel is to believe that they know what is happening and what will occur.

GONE FOR GOOD may well make you forget any other suspense novel that you read this year. Coben's plotting and timing in GONE FOR GOOD is absolutely unsurpassed. You'll never forget GONE FOR GOOD and you'll never, ever forget The Ghost. With GONE FOR GOOD, Coben delivers on the promise made in earlier novels and will be added to the "must read" list of a new legion of readers."

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub