Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Digital Fortress is a Dan Brown masterpiece. It is a mystery/suspense/action novel in which an NSA (National Security Agency) cryptographer (one who studies and deciphers codes) Susan Fletcher and her fiancé David Becker, who works for a university, are caught up in a huge twisting scandal threatening to destroy U.S. intelligence. It is a captivating twist of events, with enough evidence to support that one person is the criminal, then abruptly giving you the evidence to support that the person is innocent and someone else is threatening American intelligence. The story is set in two countries, with two story lines interconnected completely. The part that grabbed me was the suspense, the constantly twisting power struggle, and several occasions in which believing or rejecting theories could have been the difference between life and death. Also, David is constantly dodging bullets, both figuratively and literally. I enjoyed learning about a few types of codes including one used by Julius Caesar. The characters in Digital Fortress were developed at different rates, sometimes giving false hints, forcing the readers to make their own guesses about what a character will do, and then, later, they find out something different, and the plot line could change completely. The mood of the book is both slow and steady, with not a dangerous feel, just a search for an item or a search for clues at times and other times, the mood is suspenseful, mysterious, and fast passed and there is a lot of danger or the need for quick thinking and decision-making. Overall, Digital Fortress is a good novel and is worth reading; it has a good plot, a suspenseful feel as you anxiously read toward the next shocking twist, and the danger that lurks around every corner. I give this book a 5-star rating. - Bruce H.