Dan Brown · 2000 · thriller

Dan Brown's 2000 Robert Langdon thriller. When a canister of antimatter is stolen from CERN in Geneva and hidden in Vatican City to detonate at midnight, symbologist Langdon races to Rome as the Illuminati murder four kidnapped cardinals. Following the ancient Path of Illumination through the churches and fountains of Rome, he closes on the killer and the lair at Castel Sant'Angelo.

1. 1
   CERN, Geneva

   At the CERN physics laboratory outside Geneva, a vial of world-destroying antimatter is stolen and a scientist murdered, his chest branded with an ancient Illuminati symbol - drawing Robert Langdon into a single frantic night.

2. 2
   Santa Maria del Popolo

   In Rome, Langdon finds the first marker of the Path of Illumination - Earth - in this church off the Piazza del Popolo, where the first of four kidnapped cardinals is found murdered.

3. 3
   St. Peter's Square

   The second altar of science, Air, lies in St. Peter's Square at the heart of the Vatican, where the College of Cardinals is locked in conclave to elect a pope, unaware of the bomb ticking beneath them.

4. 4
   Santa Maria della Vittoria

   The third marker, Fire, waits at Santa Maria della Vittoria and Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa, where Langdon arrives moments too late to save the third cardinal from the assassin.

5. 5
   Piazza Navona

   Water, the last altar, is Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona, where Langdon plunges in to drag the fourth cardinal from drowning and takes the assassin's trail at last.

6. 6
   Castel Sant'Angelo

   The Path ends at the fortress of Castel Sant'Angelo, the Illuminati's secret Church of Illumination, and the race to find the antimatter before it can annihilate the Vatican reaches its shattering climax.