Krishna
We have, of course, reviewed both the Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code earlier in this blog.
This is the story of a ring, which contains a password engraved on it. The password is the only way to break into the biggest encryption algorithm (wow it already sounds like geek-speak) ever invented. This algorithm would make it impossible for NSA’s most powerful computer (named TRANSLTR) to break and so would increase the threat to the US that undesirables can communicate with impunity.
David Becker, a professor in Harvard (yes, really! all Dan’s heroes are Harvard Professors!) is given the simple task of retrieving the ring from Ensui Tankado’s fingers in Spain. Ensui just died of a heart failure while in Spain. Getting the ring from a dead man’s fingers should be easy with unlimited cash to spend and with no one else realizing that the ring is anything but an ornament, right? This turns into a nightmare when the ring was ‘given away’ when the owner died to a random tourist who happened to be nearby. In the meanwhile, Susan Fletcher, David’s equally intellectually accomplished girlfriend (beautiful, young and already a head of cryptography in NSA) is trying to solve the puzzle of NDAKOTA.
All the Dan Brown ingredients are there: Cliffhangers almost at the end of every page, enough puzzles, anagrams plus riddles to keep you amused, intellectual conversations on cryptography in computers, etc. However, the plot is ‘early Dan Brown’ and simpler than his later books (The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons). You know who the villain is
almost two thirds into the book but still the tension is crackling until the last page almost.
It is a good read, not the huge roller coaster of his later books but a mini roller coaster nevertheless. It is a darn good read if you have a few hours (say on a plane ride or on vacation) and want to spend it absorbed in a book.
Overall, a 6/10.
— Krishna