Brown, Dan: Digital Fortress

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Dan Brown has been getting a lot of press lately for his most recent novel, The DaVinci Code, which not only debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list but also garnered a five-star review here at the book-blog (see the review). Digital Fortress, Brown's first book (published in 1998), is another taut, intelligent thriller designed to keep you up late.

Just as The DaVinci Code, Digital Fortess is peopled by highly intelligent characters. Susan Fletcher, brilliant mathematician/cryptographer, and her linguistically accomplished fiance David Becker are both caught up in a plot against the National Security Agency's secret--indeed, officially nonexistent--super computer. With the brute force of its three million processors, TRANSLTR is capable of breaking any code in an average of about six minutes. Or it  is, at least, until the action of the book begins, when TRANSLTR is fifteen hours into at attempt to crack a code its creator claims is unbreakable. The clock ticks loudly in this book as David, Susan, and other NSA employees work to break the code and/or discover its pass-key before the algorithm is made public and/or a computer worm destroys the security protecting the United States' most confidential information. Meanwhile, an assassin is dogging Becker's steps in Spain, an NSA employee may be in cahoots with the author of the code, and a zealous security guard is pushed to his death in the bowels of the super computer's housing.

Some of the plot twists in Digital Fortress are predictable, but this hardly detracts from the book. Brown's debut novel is a riveting thriller you'll find hard to put down.