Book Review : The Deception Point

Book Review : Deception Point by Dan Brown.

Huhh...8 hours of non stop reading to finish the story from 150th page to 569th..What made me do so...of course I was in clutches of the thrill produced by Brown in this fiction of his. Deception point is an epitome of Politics, Science and drama. Such a nice plot with equally well crafted execution makes it the master piece by the genius.
The story begins with the senator Sedgewick Sexton who is contesting for the presidential race and is giving tough time to the existing idealistic president Zachary Herney on the issue of overspending by NASA. Sexton's daughter Rachel is an Intelligence Analyst at NRO. One morning after returning from a forced visit to her dad, whom she has started disliking more and more owing to his carelessness, selfishness and cheating on her deceased mother, she gets a urgent page to meet William Pickering, the NRO Director. Upon arrival, she learns that the president wants to meet her immediately and has sent him his private jet for transport, Pickering warns her of her political misuse against her father and she too is reluctant. The description of AirForce one, the official Boeing of the PResident of USA is wonderful. Rachel feels awkward at first to meet the president inside his private Boeing, but as she learns that she has to be sent on a special mission, the specifics of which will be revealed only when she arrives, converts her awkwardness into amusement and curiosity. She is transported to the North Pole on a glacier called Milne Ice Shelf. In contrast to her anticipation, she finds the place surrounded by some NASA scientists. The Director of NASA, Lawrence Ekstrom directs her to a group of scientist who will further explain her, her role in a trail.
Michael Tolland, an oceanographer and a well known TV celebrity, thanks to his series- Amazing Seas, greets her and take her inside something made like an observatory where Corky Marlinson, an astrophysicist explains her that NASA has achieved a major breakthrough in the human history by finding a meteorite with fossils of life, hidden inside the Milne Ice Shelf. It was revealed by PODS, a satellite constantly monitoring the globe for signs of large-scale change and the one which was quite in controversy for its mal functioning software and over budgeted expenditures. If proved true, this discovery will bring an end to all doubts on NASA and also the presidential campaign of Senator Sexton. The civilian scientist were appointed by President to confirm the claim made by NASA before she goes into public with the discovery. Norah Magnor, a glaciologist is the only lady scientist of the group of four, the last one being Dr Wailee Ming. Norah crafts the process to extract the rock from the depths of ice and she astoundingly believes that the discovery is truly a breakthrough. However, Rachel is still not clear of her role in this entire picture and suspects that the president might use her in public against her dad.
Dan Brown has so nicely crafted the entire science around this discovery that any layman can understand the physics of meteorite and truly believe to be standing near the meteorite, feeling the traces of life in it. All the scientist are convinced that the rock is authentic and there is no doubt over the NASA claims. President is however cautious with his public appearance and wants someone to convince his staff at White House, the smallest Presidential office of the world, and who better to fit in that role than Rachel Sexton, the Intelligence analyst who has so many times previously edited the information for President. She was convinced that it will be an In house address where she will address his staff about the discovery and she does her job with perfection. At 8 PM the president decided to go air on all channels with the discovery. Tolland has made a documentary to touch base of every aspect of the discovery directly from the center. The Milne Ice shelf is now turned into a studio with media lights all over.
The same noon, in a CNN debate between Senator Sexton and Marjorie Tench, the President's chief adviser, Senator Sexton was trapped to announce in public his complete anti support to NASA and to privatize the same to save dollars for other better purposes like education etc. Gabrielle Ash, the senator's advisor cum secretory who, although guilty on her being in bed with the senator once, is a young black lady with ideals and principles who has joined Sexton as she respected her ideologies. She used to feed Sexton with all the facts about NASA spendings, her source being some stranger whom she never knew before that day when she gets an e-mail to meet her outside the White House.
Gabrielle is taken inside the White House where she learns that her messenger is no one but Trench herself who wants her to go in public with her affair with Sexton in lieu of not publicizing the proofs of the Senator's illegal campaign funding from private space agencies and the pictures of their love. She refuses and seeks comfort in her ABC news editor Yola who advises her to keep silence.
Back there onsite, Dr Ming is suspicious about something that he see in the pit dug to extract the rock, but the moment he tries to prove it, he finds himself dead, drowned into the same pit. The US secret service commando team known as Delta has been assigned the task of keeping the secret behind the meteorite intact.
Soon the other 3 civilian scientist also observe the pit but could not still fathom the truth, Norah Magnor takes the step to prove it along with the 2 other civilians in the crew and Rachel. And here starts the expected Dan Brown Trail. Norah is killed by the same commando, and the other 3 fortunately after quite a hussle escapes from their grip and get rescued by a submarine USS Charlotte. Rachel calls up president to inform him the latest happenings before he can go live to the world but is blocked by his adviser Trench who looks hell suspicious behind guarding the secret. In vain, Rachel calls up Pickering who arranges for their transport to DC to take matter into his hand.
What is that secret and who wants to keep it that way and that too with the security service commandos? Well, the first doubt goes to the President, who desperately wants to prove his NASA spending worth. The other guy can be Lawrence Ekstrom, the NASA director who wants to get his last pride. Marjorie Trench also looks suspicious since he calls up Pickering to keep Rachel out of this and wants to meet him.
The President goes public with the NASA discovery and justifies the worth of PODS. Rachel breathes air since it was not a live defamation of herself with Senator. Although set back, Sexton gains strengths from his allies who feels that the discovery has the element of doubt and that NASA's project leader of PODS, Chris Harper was not much comfortable a person to announce. Soon Gabrielle too is on hunt of truth and plays a remarkable role to get truth out of Harper.
On board of the flight to DC, the three hunters plays a riddle to solve the mystery wherein they conclude that there is something they missing to prove hat the meteorite is an imitation and that the whole story is a deception. Tolland, tries to access his ship crew to talk, wherein he learn that Xavia, his on board marine geologist has something that Tolland has missed in his documentary. With Pickering's orders they successfully divert the route to NJ coast and lands on his ship Goya. There they prove that the meteorite can be nothing but a rock formation at the deepest level of the ocean bed, The fossil is suspected to be a kind of ocean lice, something that is yet to be to be taxanomised and would have got trapped into the rock many years ago and is now fossilized.
At DC, Trench gets killed by Delta who explodes her car and are on their way to Goya to kill the rest. After some brutal fight where one delta commando out of 3 gets killed, finally the master mind has to come in picture. Rachel is shocked but confused about the intention. The NRO director then reveals the entire motive. Although academic, the means to achieve has involved many a killings and betrayals. Pickering is also eventually killed in the combat over Goya.
When Sexton learns the fact about the meteorite through a fax from Rachel, he decided to go in public with it in spite of her daughter being in jeopardy.
Despite Gabrielle's denial, he calls for the media and hands over them the envelopes containing the proofs of the deceit. Although being warned by Rachel, the greed could not let Sexton stop from throwing mud over the president and NASA. But her comes Ms Gabrielle who has lost all her faith in Sexton's ideology and smartly turns the envelopes and replace it with the copies of his illegal transactions with private Space companies, while Sexton was in talks with Rachel. The President also modestly announces the entire story to the public and seeks their forgiveness. The story ends on a love note with Rachel and Tolland spending night together in the famous Lincoln bedroom as the guest of White House.