Book #120 – Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

When you hear the name Dan Brown, you probably think of the DaVinci Code and Robert Langdon. However, this book chosen to represent Maryland does not have the blockbuster symbologist, but rather takes place in the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade. There were only 3 books set in Maryland on the list, and I decided to go with Digital Fortress despite being split between the NSA building and Spain. So, while I’m sure my relatives from Baltimore will be slightly mad about me not choosing something from their city, there unfortunately wasn’t a whole lot of selection.

The story follows power couple Susan, a cryptographer for the NSA, and David, a linguistics professor as they tackle two different parts of a mysterious encryption known as Digital Fortress. David is sent to Spain to recover the belongings of the genius behind the encryption, while Susan works in the depths of the NSA HQ trying to figure out why their code breaker can’t break Digital Fortress. So, if you pick up Digital Fortress, be prepared for a bit of code speak from the late 90s, early 2000s when the NSA was still fairly unknown.