Digital Fortress

You know I really like mystery thrillers and no better author for a good one than Dan Brown.  Brown’s book, Digital Fortress, kept me at the edge of my seat throughout.  It seems like he thinks through every possible movement of his characters and the psychology of each person’s motives.  In Digital Fortress, the story revolves around what happens when the National Security Agency’s (NSA) ability to provide surveillance on the decoding of the internet is stopped (who thought the NSA could even decode every bit of the encrypted internet?).  This is a story of good guys and bad guys and when good people are driven to extremes because of their commitment to the government and their blind love for someone.  Brown always adds a love story and a bright agent/professor, and in this case it is a Georgetown University of Modern Languages professor, David Becker, and his fiancé Susan Fletcher, the NSA's Head Cryptographer.  Fletcher is called into assist on a special project when it is learned that former NSA employee Ensei Tankado has dealt the NSA a decryption code that all citizens of the world will get access to so they can unravel ALL top secret government records.  But wait, Commander Trevor Strathmore, NSA Deputy Director of Operations, is there to fight the decoder.  Many of the NSA staff randomly find out about Tankado’s plot and have various involvements into the response, but some to their death.  David Becker is brought in as a civilian unaware of the danger that he faces by some hoods trying also to find the code to own Tankado’s “Digital Fortress” program.  This book has all of the makings of mystery and saving the world’s secret weapons from evil.  I really enjoyed the story except like many mysteries I read I actually knew who the “bad guy” was from pretty early on, though Brown tries to hide the identity from his readers.  Still, I’d say a generally great read!  Very hard to put this one down!