Quite a few of the characters are mathematicians (or at least mathematical). The Russian spy was a mathematician working for his father's company. His mother, now a math professor at Berkeley, is the keynote speaker at a conference on cryptography when he first meets her. The sexy babe he meets at the conference (one of the vertices of the love triangle) has both interest and training in mathematics. And, the young teenager with Aspergers' Syndrome who lives across the hall from the protagonist is attempting to prove the Riemann Hypothesis and instead accidentally discovers an algorithm allowing him to quickly factor the product of any two prime numbers. An older math professor is consulted at one point, and though his behavior at first gives one the idea that he may be absent-minded and unhelpful, he turns out to still be quite sharp and knowledgeable. As you can see, some of these characters conform to and others break the stereotypes of mathematicians commonly seen in fiction.

But, (spoiler alert).....everything is not quite as it seems!

And, there is even actual discussion of the math at several points in the book. Some of it is reasonable and well presented (such as the idea of an algorithm for factoring products of pairs of prime numbers and why it would be disruptive to internet security.) Other parts are not. (The portrayal of the Riemann Hypothesis is as vague and misleading as most of the others that appear in fiction. Most authors either don't really get it or decide that they'd rather avoid it. And, the "elliptical curves" that are mentioned a few times are probably supposed to be elliptic curves which, ironically, are not elliptical.) In any case, the details of the math are not particularly important to the plot (or, probably, to most readers) and even the least mathematically inclined of readers will be left with the impression that math is important.

The invention and patenting of public-key encryption are important to the plot, and are attributed to fictional characters and companies. Anyone who bothers to read the acknowledgements will see the author's attempt to correct any misconception this may create in the reader through a brief but accurate history of its development in the real world.

I'm sure there are readers out there who would really enjoy this exciting tale featuring a bit of mathematics. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. If you are someone who has read this book and loved it, please write to me and/or post your ratings with the links below so that I can share your comments with other site visitors.