Dan Brown is back. Yet another artist (Dante, this time) to milk and yet another scandal to exploit. Thankfully his last novel, "The Lost Symbol", was so bad that Inferno comes out on top of that very low bar.

What is it this time that plagues Prof. Langdon? Why, the world is about to be plagued with a disaster unless the professor, aided of course by yet another pretty woman, can uncover the hidden secrets of Dante's Divine Comedy, Dante's mask and a Botticelli painting of Dante's Inferno. Along the way, we learn how overpopulating is crushing the planet and how a school of thought exists that wants to take radical measures to change the lopsided balance so lamented by Malthus.

It isn't really important how bad a writer Dan Brown is or how ludicrous the plot is. the only thing that matters is whether this book promises some light entrainment along with some interesting lessons in art history. On those two counts, Inferno scores.