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DIGITAL FORTRESS was the first novel of English teacher-turned-author Dan Brown. It was a visit to his college by agents of the Secret Service that piqued the interest of the lecturer in learning how the law enforcement officers became aware of the contents of private e-mails sent between two students. This enigma inspired Brown's research into the National Security Agency and his writing of this techno-thriller. Brown followed this debut with ANGELS & DEMONS, DECEPTION POINT and THE DA VINCI CODE. The story opens with a death, that of Ensei Tankado, a brilliant cryptographer, seen by the National Security Agency as a rogue. Tankado is desperately attempting to convey to onlookers a message of great importance and is apparently trying to give away a mysteriously-inscribed gold ring set on his horribly deformed three-fingered hand. Meanwhile, mathematician Susan Fletcher is not impressed when her boyfriend, languages instructor David Becker, calls her to cancel their getaway weekend. He is unable to disclose the reason for his defection until much later in the book as whenever he tries to contact her, the telephones simply do not work. He flies to Seville, in Spain, on the instruction of Susan's own boss, Commander Trevor Strathmore. Strathmore summons Fletcher to the agency to help him with some difficulties with which he is wrestling while not disclosing to her that he is responsible for David's defection. The kerfuffle is because Ensei Tankado has boasted that he has devised a totally unbreakable code, his Digital Fortress. The NSA has a secret weapon, a machine known as TRANSLTR which is capable of breaking any code in existence -- any code, that is, until it encounters Digital Fortress. While he makes the Fortress available to all on the Internet, Ensei offers to auction his key to it to the highest bidder. He has become disillusioned with the NSA and its invasion of the privacy of the entire world and so is doing his best to protect the secrets of the world's inhabitants, innocent and guilty alike. Both David in Seville and Susan back at the ranch -- err, that is, the National Security Agency -- are subjected to horrifying physical perils at the rate of those proliferating in an Indiana Jones movie or a Saturday matinee. There are astonishing revelations at every turn while a hired assassin -- but hired by whom? -- stalks David whilst the NSA hardware threatens to divulge all of its secrets to a predatory world. While there is no fault to be found with the tension and pace of the novel, characterisation is poor. There are a number of very simplistic puzzles which would surely not mystify many readers. It is incredible that a cryptographer would let a phrase such as 'without wax' thwart her problem-solving skills for too long yet this is one of the major items to baffle Susan Fletcher throughout the tale. I found it equally impossible to believe a linguist such as David Becker would be arithmetically challenged to the extent of not knowing the product of four and 16. Presumably, since they achieved best-sellerdom, Brown's later works possessed more sophistication than this early work. Brown's knowledge and research is excellent and the notion of such a machine as TRANSLTR, together with the authorities' capabilities to eavesdrop on the world's conversations, is intriguing . Perhaps the reader would find it difficult to empathise with the heroine who is not at all fazed in justifying the rights of the agency for which she works to invade the privacy of individuals -- and herein lies the weakness of the story. Perhaps it would have been a more powerful book had it been told from the viewpoint of Tankado rather than from that of the lovelorn duo of Fletcher and Becker. Whatever, the whole is just too shallow for mature readers with a reasonable knowledge. Still, the novel shows promise which is apparently fulfilled in Brown's later work.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, February 2004
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