Digital Fortress: A Thriller
Having already read “The Davinci Code” and Angels & Demons” I decided to give “Digital Fortress” a read. Mr. Brown does not disappoint… this book was just as fast-paced and full of twists as his other books. I couldn’t put it down! I work with computers so the tech-speak made the book more interesting to me. Others may be put off by that but he explains everything as you go so non-techies can get it too. I think I actually learned some things about number theory and cryptography from this book! The book is about the National Security Agency (NSA) and basically their search for dominance in the encryption algorithm market – so they can snoop everyone’s’ email (among other things). In this pursuit things don’t go quite as planned and the underlying love story adds another level of intrigue to the whole story. The characters are well written and I felt like I knew the main character, Susan Fletcher the NSA’s lead cryptographer and her fiancée, David by the end. I don’t want to spoil the story for those of you that haven’t read it so I’ll stop there. Once again Mr. Brown’s writing is enthralling I read this straight through in a day!
I read some of the other comments about this book on Librarything.com and I just want to say this is FICTION and is allowed to be full of government conspiracy theories and as one-sided as Mr. Brown sees fit. I really don’t think he was trying to make an anti-political statement; but considering the recent NON-FICTION news related to the NSA intercepting all of our phone logs recently I think the book may have a modicum of truth.
Main Characters: (I’ll try to do this without ruining anything…)
Susan Fletcher, Lead Cryptologist at the NSA
David Becker, Linguistics Professor and Susan’s fiancée
Ensai Tankado, Cryptologist formerly employed by the NSA
Commander Trevor Strathmore, Deputy Director of the NSA
Leland Fontaine, Director of the NSA
Chad Brinkerhoff, Director’s PA
Greg Hale, Cryptologist for the NSA
“Jabba”, Head of Systems Security (SysSec) at the NSA
Soshi Kuta, “Jabba’s” Assistant
Phil Chartrukian, NSA SysSec Technician
Midge Milken, Internal Security at NSA
Tokugen Numataka, Owner of Japanese company – Numatech
North Dakota, mysterious partner of Tankado
Hulohot, works for North Dakota
Coliander and Smith, NSA Agents
