"the rule of four" by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

"An uncorrected book proof - not for resale" ... "Acknowledgements [to come]"

I didn't like Tartt's "A Secret History". This tries to be like that - there's a lot about Princeton and its traditions, and there are literary passages like

• "Umbrellas bobbed past the bottom of the window like horseshoe crabs in the tide", p.46
• "Adulthood is a glacier encroaching quietly on youth. When it arrives, the stamp of childhood suddenly freezes, capturing us for good in the image of our last act", p.67

but there are also phrases like "It smells of something briny" (why not just "it smells briny"?), p.52. There seems to be no reaction to the deaths. I liked "The da Vinci code" for its cliffhangers and twists. This book has too many characters and is not pacey enough. The story of Savonarola and Francesco is interesting, but I don't know how the details of the story became known.