Deception Point

"Deception Point" opens in Washington, DC, during a tight Presidential campaign. The incumbent, a man of strong principles, is a major NASA supporter. His opponent, who is basing his campaign on turning NASA into a private, non-governmental agency, thus saving the US taxpayer billions of dollars annually, is way up in the polls. He is also accepting enormous illegal campaign contributions from private aerospace companies who have billions to gain from the privatization of NASA. After many failures & much spending, NASA is badly in need of a success.Then a NASA satellite detects a large, high-density rock buried 200 feet below the Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island, high in the Arctic Circle. NASA scientists determine the rock to be a meteor containing fossils proving that life exists elsewhere in the universe.To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House sends a team of independent experts to the NASA habisphere, built over the meteor in the Arctic Circle. One of these experts is the intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton, the daughter of Senator Sedgewick Sexton. Senator Sexton is the man running for election against the President of the United States. The plot thickens.Rachel, while in the Arctic, uncovers what could be scientific trickery - an incredible deception that could cause political and scientific upheaval and cost the President his bid for re-election. When she & her colleagues attempt to investigate further, they are plunged into life threatening danger. To escape assassination they flee for their lives. Their only hope for survival is to discover who is behind this extraordinary plot and expose the truth.Dan Brown has proven to be one of the top writers in the suspense-thriller genre. The originality of his plots, his amazingly accurate research, and his ability to catch the reader's interest from the get-go and hold it until the last word in the last sentence of the last page, make him an exceptional author. Plus, after completing each of Dan Brown's books, the reader usually comes away from the experience having learned much more than a storyline. I loved "Deception Point" - couldn't put it down. I also highly recommend "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons."

It's been quite some time since I've read a book as tight, exciting, and twisty as Deception Point. I think the last author to bowl me over so quickly was Dean Koontz (his early years, not now). This novel has just about everything you need for a stay-up-all-night read and absolutely nothing you don't need. It's very well-paced, and I swear this is one of the hardest books to put down. Until I read his debut novel, Digital Fortress, and was bowled over again by this new author. He just has a knack for getting you hooked right from the start and not weighing you down with a lot of character development until you're ready. And by this I mean he doesn't spend the first 50-100 pages introducing the main players and boring the socks off of you like a lot of authors do now. He gradually unveils each character over the course of the novel, so like in real life, you get to know them over a period of time. Dan Brown reminds me so much of when Koontz used to write like this, but now all his books are all about the character, and the action, plot, and narrative are secondary. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for character development, but I simply can't remember all there is to know about a person when 50 pages are devoted to them back to back. Just doesn't work, at least for me.So, read the plot outline above, and if sounds like a genre that will appeal to you, give it a go. I will say that Dan Brown can take the most complicated subject matter and boil it down into something completely understandable. And when I look up some of the things he writes about, I find that all his plot devices are based in fact. How refreshing! So when his prologue or author's note says such-and-such are real places and/or devices, believe him. This is one author who does his homework, and the reader is the beneficiary of all this knowledge. You will walk away from his books feeling completely refreshed, not ripped off, and ready to find his next little gem tucked away somewhere on Amazon!

I enjoy political thrillers and Deception Point is certainly that. I did find myself doing a fair amount of glossing over the extensive details, which I have no doubt are valuable to some readers, just not for me.

I nearly quit reading 1/3 of the way through the book. Much as I like Dan Brown, his diversions and tedious explanations bogged down this fanciful story. He even includes an ugly chain-smoking witch. It felt like the perils of Pauline with the heroine dramatically escaping every dire situation.

This is truly his best book. I hope there are many more like it. It’s a great story wrapped in information about all kinds of physics, oceanography, government and good old fashioned drama.