The Da Vinci Code meets Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve in this erudite adventure story set at the dawn of the printed book about the outlaw poet Fran ois Villon and the power of words to change the world. Fran ois Villon, the world's first poet of modernity, was born in Paris in 1431. He was arrested and condemned to death by hanging in 1462 and exonerated in 1463. Shortly after his release from prison, as far as history is concerned, he disappeared...