Summary: Collet informs Fache that the Cryptology Department did not, in fact, send Agent Neveu to the Louvre, as well as of Neveu’s relationship to the murder victim. An alarm in the Grand Gallery begins to sound. Tracing the movements of the GPS beacon, Collet momentarily believes that Langdon has jumped from the men’s room window to his death.
Analysis: This brief chapter initiates the first major action sequence of the novel, Langdon’s escape from the Louvre. Brown uses the technique of narrative misdirection to create suspense by leading readers, along with Collet, to suspect that Langdon has come to harm—“exiting a Louvre second-story window without the help of a hook and ladder would be suicide” (p. 88). (Of course, seasoned thriller readers may well be too sophisticated to mistake the movements of a GPS beacon for the movements of the subject supposedly wearing it!)
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