Inferno

Inferno by Dan Brown is the fourth installment in Brown’s Robert Langdon series of mystery/thriller novels, following (in order) Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, and preceding Origin. Each edition covers a self-contained story, so readers need not follow the series in order, and often includes themes centered on European and Christian history and cultural traditions. The title character, Robert Langdon, is the only recurring character. Inferno won the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Mystery & Thriller in 2013 and was adapted into a feature film in 2016, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon.

The book’s title is a reference to Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s three-part epic poem Divina Commedia, or Divine Comedy in English, which was completed in the year 1320 and traced Dante’s fictional pilgrimage through the three realms of the afterlife: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Heaven). Written in the 14th-century Tuscan dialect, the Divine Comedy is credited with establishing the modern Italian language, and Dante Alighieri remains one of the most important writers in the history of Italian literature.