  urlLink Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Joys of sex and texts fuel surprise US bestseller : "It has been labelled a cross between Donna Tartt and Umberto Eco, or F Scott Fitzgerald and Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code.
The Rule of Four, written by two 28-year-old first-time novelists, is fast becoming this year's biggest publishing sensation, with 11 reprints in the US and 325,000 copies sold in the two weeks since it was published.
It was the number one seller on amazon.com last Friday and will reach number three on the New York Times besteller list tomorrow. Like an amalgam of works by all of the above, The Rule of Four combines Ivy League intrigue, student japes, a mysterious medieval text, sex, architecture and murder. Describing it as 'an extremely erudite thriller' and observing that its authors 'are exquisitely educated and very smart', New York Times critic Janet Maslin said: 'The real treat is the process of discovery, and those passages are written with precision and bravado. '" 
