Robert Langdon, #1
Angels & Demons
by Dan Brown
Contents
2
Overview
After seeing the branded corpse, Robert Langdon takes Maximilian Kohler’s call seriously and learns that a murder at Kohler’s research facility may involve the Illuminati. Kohler’s urgency, resources, and claim that his lab helped invent the Web raise the stakes beyond an ordinary academic inquiry.
Langdon recognizes the ambigram as a potentially world-changing confirmation of his research, forcing him to move from skepticism into action. He agrees to fly to the facility, setting the investigation in motion.
Summary
Robert Langdon answers the phone after seeing the faxed image of a corpse branded with an Illuminati ambigram. The caller, Maximilian Kohler, says he is a physicist who runs a research facility and that a murder has occurred there.
Langdon challenges how Kohler found him, since Langdon’s online page for The Art of the Illuminati contains no contact information. Kohler explains that his lab has experts who can extract user information from the Web, adding that the lab invented the Web.
Kohler insists that the matter cannot be handled by phone and says his facility is only an hour’s flight from Boston. Langdon studies the fax and realizes that the symbol appears to confirm years of his research into the Illuminati, transforming what he considered historical rumor into something terrifyingly present.
Kohler reveals that he has already sent a plane, which will arrive in Boston in twenty minutes. Although disturbed by Kohler’s presumption and the implications of the image, Langdon decides the evidence is too significant to ignore and agrees to meet the plane.
Who Appears
- Robert LangdonHarvard symbologist shaken by the Illuminati brand and persuaded to investigate the murder.
- Maximilian KohlerPhysicist and research facility director who urgently summons Langdon after a murder.
- Leonardo VetraMurder victim whose branded corpse appears in the fax that compels Langdon’s involvement.