On an impulse, I recently purchased Dan Brown’s latest novel, Inferno. Although I admittedly read and enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol in the past, this time something irreversible finally seems to have taken place. Yes, in the past I’d already resigned myself to Brown’s eyeroll-inducing italics, smiled at his strained metaphors, even accepted his jarring similes.

But this one may be a bridge too far. File this one under “Oh, The Lengths to Which I Will Go on a Family Vacation.”