David Baldacci's Thrilling Novel: Characters & Plot in Babbage Town & Camp Peary, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Scarica David Baldacci's Thrilling Novel: Characters & Plot in Babbage Town & Camp Peary e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Simple Genius resume "Simple Genius" is an american thriller novel, wri�en by David Baldacci (born August 5, 1960, in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A. - s�ll alive) in 2007. Plot The novel takes part near Washington DC, in par�cular there are two areas in which the main events take place: Babbage Town and Camp Peary, both military zones in the U.S. Government's territory. There isn't a specific period in which everything happens, but in the novel there is a specific reference to World Wars. It talks about a couple of inves�gators, Michelle Maxwell and Sean King, who have to inves�gate about the misterious death of two people, Monk Turing (who is said to be Alan Turing's cousin during the story) and Len Rivest. Both events occurred in the same circumstances and in the same places. At the end, and a�er overcoming various difficul�es and also a terrible torture, Michelle and Sean will discover the truth, and jus�ce will be done. Characters The main characters, obviously, are Michelle Maxwell and Sean King. Michelle is a young and impulsive woman and also an Olympic athlete, in her thir�es, who ini�ally try to commit a suicide a�er a brawl in a bar near Washington DC, and as a result of the events, has also to hospitalize herself in a psychiatric clinic (to avoid jail), where she inves�gates about a drug traffic, ending an a�endant behind bars and discovering also the fact that the a�endant is a murderer (he killed a pa�ent's husband), but a�er overcoming that terrible period, she reaches Sean and her contribute is determinant to discover the truth about the two misterious deaths. Sean, a big man in his fourthies, is Michelle's workmate, and decides to look for a case to inves�gate. At the beginning he face the challenge alone, and obviously he has difficul�es, but Michelle's return brings a decisive turning point in the inves�ga�on and allows a posi�ve epilogue of the story. Other important characters are Vigenere Turing (nicknamed Viggie, she is Monk Turing's eleven years old daughter and she is a numbers and music genious, and establishes a deep friendship with Michelle ), Champ Pollion (whose name derives from Jean-Francois Champollion, a French people known as the decipherer of Egyp�an hieroglyphs), Alicia Chadwick (an ex-military, she is also Viggie's guardian, but during the story she tries to kill Sean, without success), Mike Ventris (Camp Peary director), Hora�o Barnes (Michelle and Viggie's shrink, whose contribute is also determinant to the posi�ve end of the story and also to discover Michelle's problems origin with psychoanalysis sessions and hypnosis) and Valerie Messaline (Ventris' wife, and at the end the true antagonist of the story; in fact she is at the head of a secret drug trade and, once discovered by Michelle and Sean, she tortures them, but at the end she is put behind bars). The novel is purely fancy, as Baldacci himself admits, but it has also real elements: for example, there are important references to Alan Turing, who is be�er known as the inventor of the Enigma machine, that has been decisive for deciphering the Nazi secret codes during World Wars. Other important references are to World Wars, FBI and CIA (a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States).