Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

 As I've said, I like Dan Brown's books like I dig comic books - light, easy reading, short chapters for my short attention span, but still interesting concepts that he really researches. This is another espionage-ish tale, this time with the NSA (interestingly enough, this mid-90's tale says the NSA was practically unknown back then - funny what we have learned since 9/11 and bush and trump, although, as Brown says, we definitely don't know everything and the NSA puts out false stories to make us feel better about them spying on us). Once again, the main protagonists are an intelligent, highly educated and strikingly good looking couple - Brown does seem to believe that looks are important, even in a novel. Cryptology, codes and languages are the basis for the tale as we learn a bit about how the NSA spies on the world and intercepts and interprets various communications in various media.

This is a multi-layered tale with the two protagonists operating in different countries, but both solving riddles as they go and discovering that nothing is quite what it seems. Both almost die more than once in their search for the answers that will protect the country's secrets, and many others do die as technology collapses around them.

I won't give away the twists'n'turns here, but while some are predictable, there are also many that are quite surprising and original. Gotta give Brown credit, he does keep up plenty of suspense (despite the few obvious turns) and keeps you on your toes throughout. Fun little escapism!