i absolutely detest his books - i read this one, and i read Digital Fortress and it just absolutely annoyed me. I was so looking forward to Digital Fortress as it was about crypto which is a huge hobby of mine and something I have been thinking of doing a masters in but there were so many glaring inaccuracies in the books that it drove me insane (and dont even get me going on the fact that the fiancee pointed the lead, supposedly brilliant crypographer, in the right direction of the final piece of code-breaking as it was soo obvious a child of 5 could have worked it out). I just got so annoyed at the inaccuracies that I just wanted him to go and research his stuff better, or even more than that write about something he actually knew about because he definately knew nothing about code breaking.
Not only that but he alters reality just to fit his answers that he wants - sorry that is soo sloppy. Don't alter something that people know is true just because you cannot be bothered to come up with a better research and more accurate plot device. It completely throws you out of the story. I spent the last chapter of digital fortress either cringing or laughing my head off at the absurdities.
But what also annoyed me was that his writing style was so simplified - it was obvious that the book was written to appeal to the mass market and including those people with an IQ of less than 70 !
As you can imagine it I completely hated it. Sorry