Not up to Brown’s standards. Trying to stretch the story over and over and . . . .

If I could award black holes, this book would earn five of them. A bit or research would have led to a better story. Being a cryptologist, I have read a lot of both fiction and nonfiction about crypto and this is the worst treatment of the topic, by far, in any fiction I have read. Brown doesn’t understand the difference between a key, an algorithm, or a passcode. He doesn’t comprehend that some things are impossible. Or other things he says are impossible are quite the opposite. He simply gets everything wrong. I enjoy science fiction, so I am used to suspending reality to tell a story. That is not the problem. It appears that Brown didn’t even bother to pick up a Wikipedia level of knowledge before writing this book, nor that his reviewers had any knowledge on the subject. I can forgive the technical flaws; it’s the cliche, stereotypical characters that I can’t get past. The he’oes are brilliant, beautiful people. The villain is a delusional and disfigured psychopath. The story reads like an old Batman comic book; a story thrown together over a week while the kids were at summer camp. His characterization of the NSA is so wrong it’s comical. NSA is bound by the Civil Service pay scale. They do not offer “double what industry” does. They make the best offers they can under the Civil Service guidelines, which is usually 10% or so below what industry offers. The book was written in 1998; at that time there were many women employed there (Not just as secretaries), inNotth cryptanalysis and information assurance. They are very smart, mostly average looking people with normal problems. Most of their young recruits come directly out of college with the enticement of NSA subsidizing further education. While NSA technology is sometimes on the leading edge, no one was ’oing quantum computing then or now; It hasn’t made it out of the physics lab yet. I rarely quit a book before I finish it; this one is an exception. I hope I didn’t pay more than a couple bucks for it. A waste of time; a wast of money.

I’ve read every book by Dan Brown. Every one is excellent. This book was masterful. It was literally a nail biter to the very last page. Well done.

Very good read, but too much repetition of tech details.

The ending showed commitment to an ideal like no other. It was utterly fantastic. I was bugging out like a fan boy at his first concert. It was so great.

It was a cool read although I imagine this like a week long crisis on a soap opera. The ending was subpar just because of the riff that came with figuring it out. Also Strathmore was a piece of work simply doing things out of obsession. Watch out for work relationships people.

Felt like reading a movie. Better than a Netflix binge

Fantastic as are all of Dan Brown Books

Recommend to pass and don’t waste your time

Dated, but that didn’t matter.