Meanwhile, around the corner, Hungary lurked

The Alexandria Link wasn't on my radar before Dad gave me a copy for my birthday; it was clearly built from a Da Vinci Code Erector set, from the terse, cliffhanger-rich, 700-word paragraphs to the Article + Historic Term + 4-Letter Noun title kit. And I think that's terrific. I think one or two books a year that kick off with their bibliophilic protagonists defenestrating burning buildings is the right amount. (I also enjoyed the current Bruce Willis vehicle, and I ate lunch at McDonald's last Saturday.) Other books that I didn't think were as good at doing whatever this newly hatched genre does, exactly, include this, this and – stinko! - this.

A bunch of folks fussier than I have attacked Brown's book for its less-than-deathless prose; it never much bothers me in a thing like this, because I figure every metaphor is just another obstacle between you and the next exploding car. In fact, in the sixty pages I read last night, I only found one sentence that I'd nominate as a howler. From page 51:

Sweden loomed on the horizon.

So, via American Heritage: did the northern nation appear as a threatening, shadowy form, or did it seem about to occur?