DECEPTION POINT: A No-Holds Barred Review

‘A case study in suspense’- Washington Post

From the author of the ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (no introduction needed I guess)

Well, I picked this book to read before ‘The Da Vinci Code’ even though I own both of them. Yes! That may seem shocking but no, I am not crazy. In my defense, this book released first. Well, the introduction or the excerpt of the story on the back cover excited me to death. Well it speaks of NASA, some secret U.S govt. agency and a hint of extraterrestrial life. Being the space buff that I am, how could I reject that.

   “If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. Its implications are as far reaching and awe-inspiring as can be imagined. Even as it promises answers to some of our oldest questions, it poses others even more fundamental.”  

President Bill Clinton, in a press conference following a discovery known as ALH84001 on August 7, 1996    

As, consistent with all his novels, Dan Brown gives us this piece of fiction with some unknown yet existing organizations and agencies like RNO, Delta Force, Space Frontier Organization etc. , with the same fast-bowling action and the signature one day plot. As his experiments of the juxtaposition of fiction and reality and with science, real and fascinating technologies and everything of modern science like CERN, NASA etc. in his books, geeks just got more into reading fiction (I mean, not science fiction) and, of course his books have greatly pandered to the needs of any wannabe conspiracy theorists or particle physicists (Angels and Demons). Genuinely in true Dan Brown style, the antagonists’ identity or the ending flies right into our faces’. I think I have cracked how he delivers this in his books, by providing an alternate suspect.

 Yes, I know you already knew that, I was just showing *wink* ;-). Moving on, not to drop ‘the’ cliche of ‘woman empowerment’ by works of literature and fiction, women do have great and powerful roles or characters in the book. (Eh! Cliche you ask, at least Indians know it as one, due to some prodigal politician/scion).

Rachel Sexton, daughter of U.S Senator Sedgewick Sexton running for president is our dashing protagonist. Smart, suave and sexy and working for the National Renaissance Organization (RNO), close to the heels of the CIA our protagonist is one hell of a hero. (Not heroine, because that is sexist, Isn’t it?).

Well, the story to say begins somewhere in the Arctic Circle with a murder or to say murders, what else this is not your romantic love story. It then moves to some fancy restaurant in Washington D.C where we meet our hero. But behold after showing up at work that day, she is rushed to the president (not her father) in the presidential helicopter (well she gist’s for the white house), yet it was a shock on the sudden undue importance. And the president meets her not at the white house but at some military base inside the ‘Air Force One’ also known as some sort of flying phallic object of power. In the flurry of events after that, Rachel is on a supersonic jet on her way 2300 miles south to the arctic. Well she is to join another set of people working inside a giant makeshift dome in the Milne Ice Shelf. Well, they were unearthing something that could be one of the biggest scientific discoveries after the discovery that the earth revolves around the sun. Fascinating, you think!

 Well the book is unputdownable after that and I was furious and impatient in the number of pages wasted to tell what exactly was the discovery. As I learned that was an overrated version of suspense-building. Well, I am not spoiling the book for you by revealing that, but Bill Clinton’s proclamation also relates to this, it is not that discovery precisely. Well, battling odds from then on, the protagonist and a group of the other characters flee and hide in a blood curling chase to get behind the motive of their attackers and to find the truth behind the discovery that was going to change of concept of the universe or our understanding of it. Now, the environment, Rachel with the charismatic Michael Tolland and the academic scientist Corky Marlinson were fleeing was as desolate and lethal and their only hope of survival was to find who was behind the masterful ploy.

Ofcourse, the book was hard to put down and it makes up for a good holiday read for most people but for people who are completely into the acclaimed scientific accuracy of Dan Brown’s novels or are sheer space and science buffs or totally for existence of extraterrestrial life, it’s worth the risk to read this book out of your valuable career-building time.

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ISBN: 978-0-552-16124-4

PRICE: Rs. 399/ $6.15/