Deception Point by Dan Brown - A Deceptively Good Story

I just finished listening to the audio book Deception Point by Dan Brown, author or the best-selling Davinci Code. After the last book I listened to this one was a welcome relief. The book is truly about deception, deception as a tool used in the political process. Some deceptions are justified others are rationalized by their perpetrators.

The story is fast paced (70% of the story occurs in less than 12 hours and 95% occurs in less than 36 hours. There is enough action and suspense that it feels like weeks have passed yet it is all crammed into a very short period of time. The President of the United States sends a senior intelligence officer, our protagonist Rachel Sexton, to validate the data regarding a meteorite discovered by NASA. This NASA discovery will bolster NASA’s reputation which has been tarnished by recent events. Her investigation verifies the the scientists conclusions and now they wait for the presidential news conference where the discovery will be announced to the world. Then something odd is noticed in the hole where the meteorite was extracted. This minor event and the attempt to keep the deception from being uncovered keep the story moving until the end when the mastermind is finally revealed.

The story starts with the first deception. The President requests Rachel to come see him. Instead of being driven to the White House she is flown to a secret spot to see the president then is flown by fighter jet to the Arctic Circle. Though a minor deception, it warms the reader up for the deceptions to come and also plants seeds of doubt in Rachel’s mind as to the President’s integrity.

Another deception we are presented with is the character of the President’s political challenger, Senator Sedgwick Sexton. He is a man who will do or say whatever it takes to become the next president. He has no moral compunctions at all - believing that anyone who is not willing to bend or even break the rules is not strong enough to be president.

The main deception of the story though is meteor itself and what the perpetrators of this hoax are willing to do to protect their secret. What will they be willing to do to enhance the reputation of NASA? Kill? Who? How many? And part of this deception is the authors greatest skill in deceiving the reader into thinking they know who the ‘controller’ is - and then having to scrap our assumption until the end when we find out we had been wrong from the start.

Whether any of the science is currently feasible or not, the author has written a great story. The protagonist in the course of 24 hours should have been dead a number of times only to chance on being rescued. It keeps one wondering how they will get out of this impossible jam - and yet it is not totally unbelievable - and it is definitely enjoyable.