THE RULE OF FOUR

Josh Hamilton gives a splendid reading of what may well be a superb novel. He moves easily between the Princeton students of today and the high scholarship of yesteryear. The trouble? He has just six hours for a story that runs 368 pages in the actual novel. And this a densely plotted mystery built around a five-hundred-year-old manuscript, itself notoriously inscrutable. Said manuscript, the Hypnoerotomachia (say that four times and you'll have a bestseller), may hide treasures of astounding worth. There are lively, if disjointed, action scenes, and even pithy quotes, for instance, the Italian saying--"A bad book is the worst thief." This version is more a sampling than a story. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 04]