Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Copyright: 1998.
ISBN: 9780312263126
This is the second book of Dan Brown’s that I’ve read (I read The Da Vinci Code first, not realising that it was the second book in a series). This story however is a stand-alone novel that concerns the American National Security Agency (NSA), and its cryptographic division who have a sophisticated computer program that can decode anything in a matter of minutes, until it comes across a code written by a former employee.
A high level cryptographer in the NSA is called in to solve the riddle of this new code when the agency is essentially held hostage by a code system that threatens to put put them out of business, and ensure 100% privacy to everyone in the world - something no security agency would want.
Unlike numerous thriller novels there isn’t tonnes of violence, with everybody armed to the teeth, etc. This novel is could easily be considered a classic as it requires the reader to think, and understand rather than just experience the visceral pleasure.
It is great to see the emergence of strong female characters in Brown's books, as the spy/thriller genre has been centred almost solely on males for decades. An excellent novel, looking forward to reading more of his work.
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