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oversimplified into a romance novel that was set against a life-or-death backdrop.’ The reviewer went on to say that if the reader wanted to learn about the goings on at the NSA or about computer programming or codes then Digital Fortress was a good book to read but ‘for plot and style, it’s just the usual Dan Brown.’ [60]
    Another reviewer said, ‘I was most disappointed to discover that the betraying character – which appears in all of his books and is, I think, supposed to shock readers – becomes ridiculously easy to identify.’ [61]
    Finally, a review by Magda Healey published on the Bookbag website in July 2004 condemned Digital Fortress as a book to read if the reader has nothing else to do. She said that the writing was worse ‘than The Da Vinci Code ,’ and that his characters were unrealistic and the dialogue was wooden. She did not recommend the book at all, giving it just two stars.
    So there are good reviews and bad – most are good – but is Digital Fortress an entertaining read? There is one easy way to tell: sales figures. In 2005 the Times Online published the figures for Brown’s books and even then they were astounding. ‘ The Da Vinci Code is estimated to have sold, 2,225,118 copies in Britain, and his two backlist titles Digital Fortress and Deception Point , previously unpublished here – have shifted over 600,000 copies each.’ [62]
    Based on the reviews, the comments emailed to Brown and the sales figures, we can say that Digital Fortress meets the Curzon Group’s first principle of entertainment value and does so in spades. From the first page to the last it is filled with tension, pace and suspense. Whether it is good writing or not is another matter.
    Digital Fortress is an interesting story. It’s set inside the US National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors communications from around the world, via the internet and email, for anything that would be a threat to US security. The core of the NSA is a multi-billion dollar computer called TRANSLTR that has three million processors enabling it to decode any encrypted messages almost instantly and the NSA to pick up potential terrorist threats.
    TRANSLTR is merrily decoding thousands of messages from around the world until suddenly it comes across a code that it can’t break. The agency calls in its top cryptographer, beautiful mathematical genius Susan Fletcher, to help break the deadlock. Without her knowledge, the agency has also brought her fiancé, David Becker, into the equation. An expert in foreign languages and a professor who has assisted the NSA before, Becker is sent to Spain to retrieve the ‘kill code’ or pass key that will enable TRANSLTR to break the code.
    As the story unravels, we discover that a former employee of NSA’s Crypto division, the brilliant Ensei Tankado, has written this unbreakable code called Digital Fortress because he believes that TRANSLTR is immoral and that the world should be aware that the US is listening in to everything. However, Tankado is murdered in Spain before Becker can get to him. Becker believes the code is written on a ring that Tankado gave to a tourist just before he died and Becker needs to find that ring. From this moment on Becker is in a race against the clock to get the ring back while being hunted by an assassin bent on killing him.
    Meanwhile, Susan Fletcher is working hard to break the code and as she does, she uncovers layers of lies and deception. The plot twists and turns as people she thinks she can trust are the ones who can’t be trusted and her world is turned on its head. She soon discovers that Digital Fortress is more than just an unbreakable code: it has the power to bring down the US government’s entire security systems, which, once breached, will open up all of the US government secrets – including the launch codes for nuclear missiles – to hackers, terrorists and any other malignant attack!
    As we have seen Brown got his ‘big idea’ for the