Hello.

Are you ready for another discussion about an interesting book?

This is Inside the Cover, and I'm your host, Ted Ayres.

As always thanks for watching PBS Kansas and for keeping your set tuned to our show.

We'd love the opportunity to visit with you and sharing some of my latest reading adventures.

In that regard, I want to devote our program tonight to The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason.

It touches on many areas of personal interest to me.

Books.

Writing.

Education.

Universities, friendship.

History parental relationships and life.

There is also an underlying mystery that our young academic protagonists seek to solve, with no small risk to their personal health and well-being.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Dustin Thomason and Ian Caldwell have been best friend since they were eight years old.

Upon graduatin from their respective colleges in 1998, the two began working on the Rule of Four.

After writing together for a summer, the two continued to collaborate online and by telephone for the next five years.

The book was published in 2004 by Dial Press, and it spent 49 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and it has sold more than 2 million copies.

Upon publication, it was ofte compared to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, due to its similar style of teaching history through a fictional plot, as well as the proximity of publication.

The New York Times Book Review called it ‘the ultimate puzzle book.

Dustin Thomason, who is 48, attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia.

He then went on to study anthropology at Harvard and received his MD and MBA from Columbia University in 2003.

In addition to publishing anothe bestselling book called 12-21, he enjoys a very successful career in television.

Ian Caldwell, who is also 48, attended the same high school as Thomason.

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B.

in history from Princeton University.

After completing a 127 page long senior thesis, it took Caldwell ten years to complete his second work, The Fifth Gospel, which was publishe by Simon and Schuster in 2015.

Suffice it to say, these are two smart dudes.

The plot of the Rule of Fou is set on the Princeton campus during Easter weekend in 1999, and centers on four Princeton seniors friends and roommates in a quad at the north end of Dod Hall, attempting to solve a mystery related to an extremely rare and mysterious book, which was published in Venice, Italy in 1499.

As noted earlier, I really enjoyed this book because of its intensity, the breadth of subject matter and the quality of the writing.

I appreciated the setting of the book on the Princeton campus, utilizing its Ivy League traditions, facilities, and history.

Likewise, the many references to academic life administrators, faculty, campus police.

I also noted the rivalry and competition between professors seeking to make an immutable and forever contribution to scholarship... or simply to write a bestseller.

All of that sometimes leads to murder.

Scholarship, and study can be all encompassing-- and dangerous.

Again, I was impressed with the writing.

Our book tonight has been The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason.

Whil it has been around for 20 years, I can still recommend it to you today as a fresh find worthwhile and stimulating read.

Good night and I look forward to our next visit.