Angels & Demons is a great ride. Brown generates narrative excitement almost effortlessly. From its opening in Boston to its thrilling end in Vatican City, his story rarely lets up. Compulsive readers should be legally barred from picking up this book unless they are on vacation, far away from any morning duties.

In both this book and its successor, The DaVinci Code, Brown builds his story on sort of a what-if premise: What if certain lost or discredited manuscripts of the past were actually true? Brown has a great time finding real-life “proofs” for his intellectual what-if game, and succeeds wildly in combining textual analysis, architecture, and symbology into a compelling storyline.

The problem in both of these books is that their conclusions are much less compelling than the stories that get you there. The what-if stuff is fine to a point, but trying to make an intellectually satisfying grand finale out of intellectually discredited source material is tough work.

In the end, though, the joy of the ride definitely outweighs the murkiness of its conclusion.