Deception Point: A Novel

By: Dan Brown

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2001 Dan Brown (P)2004 Simon & Schuster Inc. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Critic reviews

"Brown moves into new territory with his latest. It's an excellent thriller: a big yet believable story unfolding at breakneck pace, with convincing settings and just the right blend of likable and hateful characters. He's also done his research, folding in sophisticated scientific and military details that make his plot far more fulfilling than the norm." (Publishers Weekly)
"A dazzling high-tech adventure...Brown proves once again that he is among the most intelligent and dynamic of authors in the thriller genre." (Library Journal)
"This is pretty exciting stuff...and Brown certainly does have a knack for spinning a suspenseful yarn." (Booklist)

Very suspenseful. ...

It was a good listen and it went quickly, the audio could be cleaned up a bit.

Just okay...

Compared to his other works it was not as captivating. The plot as plausible as it may be is just presented to precipitate the story, thus it becomes long an a predictable convenient end.

Political truth

The politics at play in this book are reflective of the real world. Lies and deceit everywhere. The story was a lot of fun with a good narrator. Whoever mixed the audio failed to remove the many annoying mouth clicks and swallows after each section.

buy

story was very good. followed it well and loved the set up and action. doesn't have many characters so the names are easy to remember.. the chapters where like scene switches, and that helped me follow the characters so much more easy. . I love the plot twist at the end. the book took a while to take off but once it did it held you to keep wanting to know what's bout to happen

Twists everywhere!

We loved the book on a 15 hour road trip, it was engaging the entire way.

Expected More

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I will not listen to it again in the future.

The story is filled with implausible turns of events reminiscent of children's stories (the escape in the ice), a multi layered conspiracy theory that reflects the political comprehension of a young teenager (with black helicopters), special forces that share the name of a real unit but nothing else, and a cheaply constructed deus ex machina near the end of the story.

It took me 3 attempts to get through this book's cringing passages. Richard Poe's narration is the only reason I ultimately listened to the book in its entirety.

What could Dan Brown have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I wish Dan Brown had paid more attention to the story's plausibility - particularly the workings of the White House, politics, and military special forces.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Having listened to the book, I know I will not watch a movie adaption.

Any additional comments?

I would probably have enjoyed this book much more as a teenager than I did as an adult.

Not Dan Brown’s best

I have enjoyed many of Dan Brown’s books and I hope this would be another. While the general idea was intriguing and most of the characters were interesting, the book is riddled with errors and outright impossibility. I am not talking about the story itself, fantasy is the basis of fiction. Dan Brown and his assistants were lazy in their story telling. There were too many scenes (most unnecessary) that could or would never happen. Some of these scenes are so ridiculous as to be distracting.

Military personnel don’t act or talk the way they are depicted. Helicopters can’t hover 2300 feet about Washington DC and pretend to go unnoticed. Add these grossly negligent errors to the plethora of “convenient” scenes that were obviously designed to build drama, and I would say, “Pass”. The book feels like a project half cocked. Maybe he was late for a deadline and didn’t get that final editorial pass.

good action thriller a bit implausible

the book started out pretty good but as the plot thicken the complexity and implausibility was off the map real similar to a Tom Clancy novel. good for those who enjoy the genre. there are better works out there.

Mostly Plausible and well written

Dan Brown was definitely starting to come into his own with this one. You can "see" the writing on the wall for the writer he would become. The story was amazing, glittered with lots of factual (for the time it was written) information. My biggest complaint (which made it hard to finish) was the narration. Richard Poe's performance was fine, the problem for me was in-between speaking (durring the "silent" parts) was a lot of mouth noises. For most I am sure that won't be a problem, for me it kills the moment. If you can get past that though, I highly recommend giving this book a listen, really shows just how creative Dan Brown's imagination really is.

Good enough book but the sound editing bothered me

This is a pretty good book, worth a listen for the entertainment value.

HOWEVER

I can hear every ding dang dry mouth swallow and muted burp from the narrator. It's disgusting to listen to and completely disrupts the experience. The editing of the sound should have been much better.