Deception Point

by Dan Brown Narrated by Richard Poe

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Twisted motives fuel this Dan Brown standalone about a mysterious NASA discovery. Set in the Arctic, this one takes on science and politics. Raising ethical questions about the place scientific discoveries hold in our political landscape, this is a brilliantly written page-turner that comes with many surprises.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code, Angels amp; Demons, and Inferno-now a major film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones-comes a lightning-fast thriller about an astonishing NASA discovery that uncovers a vicious conspiracy leading all the way to the White House.

A shocking scientific discovery. A conspiracy of staggering brilliance. A thriller unlike any you've ever heard...

When a NASA satellite discovers an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory-a victory with profound implications for NASA policy and the impending presidential election. To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House calls upon the skills of intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic scholar Michael Tolland, Rachel travels to the Arctic and uncovers the unthinkable: evidence of scientific trickery-a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy. But before she can warn the President, Rachel and Michael are ambushed by a deadly team of assassins. Fleeing for their lives across a desolate and lethal landscape, their only hope for survival is to discover who is behind this masterful plot. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

A mostly tedious third technothriller from the author of Angels and Demons (2000), etc. Incumbent President Zach Herney is fighting for his life in an upcoming election against the slick and slippery Senator Sedwick Sexton. Herney is a staunch supporter of NASA, while Sexton has been using the expensive, mistake-prone, and nonprofitable agency as a convenient whipping-boy in his stump speeches. Protagonist Rachel Sexton, the senator's daughter, works for the National Reconnaissance Office, where she digests information into reports used by the White House. The fact that she works so closely with the president has made for no small amount of tension between her and her father, of course. At the outset of the story, Rachel is whisked off to a spot somewhere near the Arctic Circle where NASA is trying to recover a meteor with what looks like fossils of extraterrestrial life on it from underneath two hundred feet of ice. Naturally, things aren't quite what they seem, what with the small band of Delta Force soldiers secretly watching the NASA encampment. The more that Rachel learns about the meteor, with the help of popular scientist Michael Tolland and a NASA techie by the name of Corky, the less things make sense. The author has an impressive grasp of his material, and even though this is the type of thriller where the gadgetry is often more believable than the wooden characters (the Delta Force soldiers' guns that create bullets out of snow are especially cool), Brown's scientific knowledge isn't what ultimately dooms the book. The story, which has an initial rush to it, bogs down once it starts plodding through all the government shenanigans and secret plots. Although Brown is a moreastute storyteller than most of his brethren in the technothriller vein, and won't lose any fans this time out, he's never able to convincingly marry the technical and the human sides of Deception Point.

From the Publisher

"Excellent.... A finely polished amalgam of action and intrigue."

— Publishers Weekly

"A taut, fast-paced, barn-burner of a book."

— St. Petersburg Times (FL)

"A rocket-fast thriller.... An outstanding read."

— Vince Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Consent to Kill

"A master of smart thrills."

— People

DEC 04/JAN 05 - AudioFile

The fates of NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the Senate become intertwined when a meteorite that appears to have extraterrestrial life buried within it is discovered under the Arctic ice shelf. Rachel Sexton, an NRO agent sent by NASA to the Arctic, becomes embroiled in a plot to kill her and the scientists working on the site to ensure the secrecy of the discovery. Richard Poe’s narration follows the plot twists as the ruthless Senator Sexton campaigns against NASA and his daughter in a dark cloud of intrigue in Washington. Chapters are short, the plot complex, and Poe’s voice the guiding light. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169942217
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/01/2004
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

A shocking scientific discovery.
A conspiracy of staggering brilliance.
A thriller unlike any you've ever read....

When a NASA satellite discovers an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory — a victory with profound implications for NASA policy and the impending presidential election. To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House calls upon the skills of intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic scholar Michael Tolland, Rachel travels to the Arctic and uncovers the unthinkable: evidence of scientific trickery — a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy. But before she can warn the President, Rachel and Michael are ambushed by a deadly team of assassins. Fleeing for their lives across a desolate and lethal landscape, their only hope for survival is to discover who is behind this masterful plot. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all.

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