RATING  ****

 Digital Fortress is a 384 page paperback thriller book by Dan Brown published May, 2000. 

Here’s the problem: Digital Fortress has a good plot, but it’s filled with weak characters.  I really liked the plot.  A disgruntled NSA employee develops an unbreakable encryption program (the Digital Fortress) and threatens to give both the encryption program and the key (which is buried in the program) away on the Internet. If the bad guys gain access to the key, they will be able to communicate without fear of the NSA decrypting their messages. This throws the NSA into a panic – as it should – so they send David Becker to track down the former employee.  However, David learns that the man has died in suspicious circumstances, so … well, you know.

Pretty good so far, but now consider the main characters.  Susan Fletcher and David Becker are the perfect pair.  She’s beautiful, intelligent, sexy and decent to the core.  He’s beautiful, intelligent, sexy and – yes – decent to the core.  Although Susan has an IQ of 170, she’s mostly eye candy.  The only surprise was that nobody tied her to railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train.  Although that might have improved her characterization.  David, on the other hand turns out to be the greatest daredevil of all time, outwitting a professional assassin, even though the most exciting thing he has done is to thrash an opponent on a squash court (and then treat him to a fruit shake and bagel).  There’s another character known only as Jabba … enough said?

 Okay, so what’s the bottom line?  This clearly isn’t a top-level thriller, but if your plans fall through some weekend, this wouldn’t be a bad book to pick up.