Book Review- Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

From the author of ‘Angels and Demons’ and ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ we get the bestselling book ‘Digital Fortress,’ Dan Brown’s first novel published in 1998. It is a techno-thriller book and gives the readers vast information about the National Security Agency (NSA) in US. The NSA is an organization that can read personal emails and is responsible for global monitoring and collection of information to protect the civilians from terrorist attacks or any kind of massacre. Susan Fletcher, the head cryptographer of the NSA, is called by her commander, Trevor Strathmore, on a Saturday morning due to an emergency. Susan was supposed to be on vacation with her fiancé David Becker, but he had called, too, and said that he had to leave due to some work. Confused, Susan rushes to the NSA to face the shocking fact that TRANSLTR (the code-breaking machine) is unable to break a code for the first time in history. Ensei Tankado had developed an unbreakable code, named Digital Fortress, to challenge the US intelligence and expose its secrets to the world. Susan’s mission starts with the objective of decrypting the code by finding the pass key made by Tankado. Later, she comes to know that David was sent to Spain for the same mission on which she was working. The story becomes more interesting as, one by one, people in the organization get to know about the crisis through different clues. On the other hand, David chases a ring that is important for national security, which then further leads to a thrilling cat and mouse chase. The novel is highly praiseworthy for its thorough research work and readers can gain a lot of knowledge from it. They can get to know about the Caesar box, Enigma (the most famous code in history used by the Nazis) and the functioning of the most secretive agency in the world. The book is written in simple English with some impressive lines to remember. The fascinating fact about the story is how everything is connected and the detailed descriptions of every place and character. People who understand computer programming will get a better understanding of the book. The novel is undoubtedly a treat for all thriller lovers and the ones who have a thirst for knowledge. This novel of 510 pages is definitely hard to resist and is the perfect attention-stealer!