‘Deception Point’ by Dan Brown

Deception point is a scientific and political thriller written by Dan Brown, one of the most famous writers nowadays. Dan Brown was born in the United States of America on 1964. Deception point was published in 2001 between his two best sellers Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code.

The plot turns around Rachel Sexton, the daughter of the leading Presidential candidate Senator Sedgewick Sexton. He has won this advantage at the elections by criticising the NASA failures and all the money that have been spent on those failures. But Rachel doesn’t get on well with his father and she is working for the president at the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office). One day she gets an unexpected call from the president to meet him. The president Zach Herney wants her to go to the Arctic because the new NASA satellites have made a breathtaking discovery that can change the whole history of the earth and can cause important changes in the battle to reach the White House. But something goes wrong with that discovery and she would have to battle for her own survival with other scientists, while they are trying to show the truth to the world, versus The Delta Force, a team trained to kill without asking why. Fighting adversity she will find real love.

The characters are really well-drawn with all kind of detail. The book is full of unimaginable twists; nothing seems what it really is. The plot is nail biting and it compels you to continue reading. Despite of being a scientific and political thriller the language is accessible for almost everyone. At first there are lots of abbreviations but you can quickly get accustomed to it but on the other hand the author explains to us at the beginning of the book that some of this abbreviations for organizations like NRO, The Delta Force are real and that all the technologies that he uses in that book really exist so we have the chance to discover a bitter more from that ‘hidden’ world that surrounds us.

In my opinion, if you have liked the other books by Dan Brown you would like this one too. The book has such suspense and the chapters are so short that I consider the book unputdownable. It’s a book that really absorbs you and is very difficult not to think about what’s going to happen next.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Angels and Demons

Dan Brown has become famous after the Da Vinci Code as his previous novels were only moderately successful having sold less than 10,000 copies. Angels and Demons is the first adventure of a hero of a new generation: Robert Langdon.

The book starts when Harvard specialist in religious symbols, Robert Langdon, receives a strange phone call asking him about the Illuminati. The Illuminati were a group of Renaissance scientists, including Galileo and other famous men, who met secretly in Rome to discuss new ideas in safety from papal threat. At that time the church was against science in general and scientists were executed or prosecuted as enemies of the church. However, the group was supposedly gone long ago. They were a secret group, kind of Masonic in style, with a secret symbology. The symbols were ambigrams - words that look the same written upside down or the right side up. Langdon had made a study of the supposedly extinct group and their symbols. But the phone call brought proof that the group is still alive.

A famous scientist, Dr. Vetra, is murdered leaving behind a beautiful daughter to help Langdon discover the meaning behind his death and the ambigram - Illuminati - that is tattooed on his dead body. His daughter, Vittoria, reveals that they had both been working on a secret project - anti-matter. A sample of this anti-matter is missing. It must be found within 6 hours or the explosion could destroy an entire city, a city such as Vatican City. It is also revealed that with the death of the current Pope, all the Cardinals of the Catholic Church will be gathered in the Vatican to decide who the next Pope will be. This is where the anti-matter is supposed to be. Along with the fact that the head of the Vatican’s security finds it hard to believe it exists at all and so is reluctant to help to locate it. He is more concerned with the fact that the four men who are being considered for Pope are missing. This complicates things a bit since the Cardinals who are gathered in the meeting cannot leave until the new Pope is chosen. Never in the history of the Catholic Church have the doors been opened before a Pope is selected.
So, you’ve got four missing men, missing anti-matter, a scientific anti-religious group who are suppose d to be long gone and only 6 hours to solve everything. It is the job of Robert Langdon and Vittoria to follow the path of illumination by solving old clues left for secret scientists long ago to discover who is behind all this and try to save the lives of the Cardinals before it is too late. But if that isn’t enough to keep them busy, there are also many people who want them to fail and so are trying to kill them as they follow the path. Along with those in the Vatican who don’t believe any of it. Unbeatable odds? Maybe. You should read the book to find out.

For a long time I refused to read a book by Dan Brown. When I finally succumbed to the Da Vinci Code, I found that there was much to be said for the book. Controversy always sells, and using Mary Magdalene, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Vatican as your main reference points, it was clear that the book was a wonderful bomb.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code has become one of the most widely read books of all times. The conjunction of fascinating descriptions and the rhythm of this thrilling blockbuster is able to make you forget tiredness just to read another chapter.

In the middle of the night Jaqques Sauniere, curator of the Louvre, has been brutally murdered and all the traces lead to Robert Langdon, a skilled Harvard symbologist who is the only person able to solve the series of brain-teasers the curator has designed to disclose the secret he has hidden with his death……Robert gets help from the talented Sophie Neveau cryptologist from the Interpol and niece of the curator’s. Together they start a breathless race trough many historical places related to the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail, The Opus Dei … etc

The main subject of the book is Catholicism, the power they have nowadays and how far dare its representatives go to keep it in their hands and of course the lies it is based on. It also describes members of the Opus Dei as monsters without a conscience, capable of everything just to satisfy their enormous ambition of power. That is the reason why, this bestseller has caused many polemic debates about Catholicism in general.
Even if you find its number of pages discouraging, once you start reading you won’t be able to put it down.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, is a mixture of exciting thriller and art history lesson about the search for the Holy Grail and the true history of Jesus.

Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of religious symbology, is in Paris on business when he is woken up in his hotel room in the middle of night by the Police Judiciaire. Jacques Saunière, the elderly curator of the Louvre and the man he had planned to meet that evening, has been murdered inside the museum. The dead man left symbols near his body and an enigmatic message that mentions Langdon’s name, so the French police considers him the prime murder suspect.
Helped by Sophie Neveu, a police cryptologist who turns out to be Saunière’s granddaughter, Langdon discovers that the clues of the enigma are hidden in some of Leonardo Da Vinci’s more famous paintings. Langdon and Neveu team up to solve the mystery of the curator’s death. They have to break codes andchase trails to finally learn that Saunière belonged to the secret society called Priory of Sion and he has sacrificed his life to protect the Priory’s most sacred secret: the location of the most important religious relic, hidden for centuries, the Holy Grail.
They start a frenetic night race through Paris and London followed by the French Police and the people behind the curator’s murder, the Catholic organization Opus Dei, who want to keep hidden the secret of the Grail that could change history and religion.

This is an intelligent thriller with all the ingredients to be entertaining and fun: it has suspense, chase scenes, a lot of puzzles to be solved and a sense of urgency that make you read anxiously right to the end. These are the reasons why Dan Brown’s novel has been a worldwide bestseller since it was published in 2003, with more than 60.5 million of copies sold and translated into 44 languages.
Everybody has heard something about this controversial book but I recommend reading it and form your own opinion about it. You won’t waste your time.

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Digital fortress

Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown, is an exciting thriller set in Spain about a virtual attack on the National Security Agency’s top secret super-computer, called TRANSLTR, the best decoding machine in the world capable of breaking every existing code.

But, the question is: Can an undecipherable code exist? Susan Fletcher, one of the best cryptographers of the NSA can’t believe it when his chief, the assistant director of the agency informs her that he has intercepted a code unbreakable to TRANSLTR.

Ensei Tankado an ex-NSA cryptographer, who dies in the first chapter and actually is the main character of the book, doesn’t like the capability of the computer to decode private e-mails. He is the creator of Digital Fortress, a mathematical code that the super computer can’t break. He threatens to make it available for everybody unless NSA makes the existence of TRANSLTR known to the general public.

Even as Susan scrambles to find Ensei Tankado’s secret partner, she is shocked, angry and scared because Commander Strathmore, her boss, has inexplicably sent her boyfriend David, a normal university professor expert in languages, in a dangerous mission to Spain to recover the unbreakable code’s key, apparently hidden in the corpse of Ensei Tankado, dead in Seville of a heart attack although he might have been killed for that reason. He isn’t the only person who is looking for the key… So, does the key really exist? And if so, will David survive to find it and bring it back knowing that a lethal and methodical killer has the same aim?

This is a race against time, plenty of action, lies and high technology in which Susan Fletcher faced with fear and betrayal will have to fight for her love, her life and her country.

I really enjoyed this best seller; it is gripping, extremely readable and made for people who love action books and thrillers. Despite the publication’s date, this is the first novel written by Dan Brown, the same author as The Da Vinci Code, his most successful story. However, in my humble opinion, I’m very disappointed with the way in which Brown describes Spain: the hospital smelling of urine, for instance or when he says: “Everybody knows about the corruption in the Spanish police”. You can read it, at the end of the day it is fiction, but if you are Spanish, you may feel hurt. It’s up to you!!