Now this is a truly amazing book by Brown, and just like all his other books this one too has lots of twists and turns. And if you read his other novels, then you will find this book a bit predictable since his style of writing remains the same. This book too involves complex codes and breaking them, though here, the codes and technology are fully digital, which I believe, is far easier to comprehend than the codes and symbols used in Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code.
A JIST OF THE STORY:
In this story our hero, David, is a professor in Georgetown University, who has recently been offered the post of Chairman of Modern Language Department. His lady love, and the heroin of our story, Susan, works for the NSA (National Security Agency) and is the head of Cryptography Division.
The story starts one morning when David calls Susan and abruptly cancels their trip to Smokey Mountains without much explanation. A stunned and confused Susan gets a call from her boss asking her to come to the office immediately.
What follows next is the two parallel stories of David in Spain in search for a ring and Susan at NSA.
The main character around which the whole story revolves is the TRANSLTR, the single most expensive computing equipment which NSA is proud of, though anonymous to the rest of the world. It is said to be able to break any code written in any language, within minutes, thus giving NSA the power to check out anyone’s and everyone’s e-mails and calls.
Tankodu, supposedly the villain of our story, is an ex-employee of NSA, and a brilliant programmer, who claims to have written a code the TRANSLTR cannot break, thereby holding NSA as a hostage unless they reveal the truth about the existence of TRANSLTR to the world.
The ambitious Strathmore, the creator of TRANSLTR, is ecstatic that finally all his sacrifices have paid off, but alas, the moment doesn’t last too long.
The climax is as gripping as the last ten min of FIFA finals, and you just can’t stop turning the pages.
The half page epilogue, in a way, summarizes the whole story.
Enjoy the book!!!
