FOUCAULT’S PENDULUM is a superb entertainment by the celebrated author of The Name of the Rose. An enthralling mystery, a sophisticated thriller, a breathtaking journey through the world of ideas and aberrations, the treasures and traps of knowledge. Umberto Eco’s new novel will delight, tease, provoke and stimulate.

One Colonel Ardenti, who has unnaturally black brilliantined hair, an Adolphe Menjou moustache, wears maroon socks and fought in the Foreign Legion, stars it all. He tells three editors at a Milan publishing house that he has discovered a coded message about a Templar plan, centuries old and of diabolical complexity, to tap a mystic source of power greater than atomic energy.

The editors (who have spent altogether too much time rewriting crackpot manuscripts on the occult by self-subsidizing poetasters and dillettantes) decide to have a little fun. They’ll make a plan of their own. But how?