History Literature / DeceptionPoint

* BigBad: [[spoiler:Senator Sexton might be a {{Jerkass}}, but William Pickering serves as the story's true Big Bad, orchestrating the conspiracy [[WellIntentionedExtremist in order to keep NASA afloat]].]]

* TheDogBitesBack: Sexton [[spoiler: fires ([[WouldHitAGirl and punches]])]] Gabrielle when she calls him out on [[spoiler: letting his daughter die for the sympathy vote]]. See below for how this turns out for him.

* SmugSnake: Senator Sexton, hands down.
* SpottingTheThread: Basically the reason [[spoiler:the fake meteorite is exposed; all the evidence supported the idea that the meteor was real, but once they discovered a few microscopic fish under the meteorite, introducing the idea that it had been planted in that iceberg on purpose, Rachel, Michael and Corky are able to take another look at the evidence and admit that there are other explanations for the evidence beyond it coming from outer space]].
* StrawmanPolitical: Who do you think?

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: Sexton's computer password is "SSS", standing for "Senator Sedgewick Sexton". When Gabrielle finds out that his password is only 3 characters long, Sexton goes on a ramble about how he's too old to memorize passwords, only for her to demonstrate that that line of thinking is insufficient when she types in the password that she guessed just by looking at him when he types it.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish

* BrandX - Averted: all of the aerospace companies mentioned in [[spoiler:Sexton's illicit meeting with their representatives]] are real.
* DanBrowned - Obviously:

* EngineeredPublicConfession - [[spoiler:How Sexton gets his comeuppance: he gives to the press what he thought was the evidence of the meteorite cover-up but Gabrielle switched the envelope with one containing pictures of the sexual tryst between the two which he has vigorously denied to the press much earlier.]]

* FacelessGoons - Interestingly invoked: the fact that Delta One, Two and Three are never physically described, coupled with only being referred to by their codenames conveys this impression.

* GovernmentConspiracy - [[spoiler:Subverted, seeing as Pickring acted without the government's knowledge.]]

* LiteralSurveillanceBug - Delta Force uses these.
* MeaningfulName - Senator Sexton and his daughter Rachel. The former is a corrupt politician who likes to have his way with his [[SexySecretary hot secretary]], the latter, well, is just sexy. [[FanService Obviously]].

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain - Senator Sexton. "If it were up to me, the faggots wouldn't even have the right to vote". And he thinks this to himself while simultaneously agreeing to tone down condemnation of same-sex marriage in his campaign.

* RedHerring - [[spoiler:Lawrence Ekstrom and Marjorie Tench.]]
* SmugSnake - Senator Sexton, hands down.
* StrawmanPolitical - Who do you think?

* VasquezAlwaysDies - [[spoiler:Dr. Mangor.]]
* WellIntentionedExtremist - [[spoiler:William Pickering. He orchestrated the meteorite forgery and the attempted silencing of Rachel, Michael and Corky so NASA's sensitive data wouldn't end up in the hands of the private sector and potentially in those of the USA's enemies.]]

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes - Rachel's aquaphobia, which she developed after falling through a frozen lake as a child.

* BangingForHelp: Trapped on an iceberg with Michael and Corky after an attack by the Delta Force and quickly succumbing to hypothermia, Rachel uses her ice ax to bang out [=SOS=]. Rachel knows she and the men will be long dead by the time the hydrophones listening in hundreds of miles away hear the signal, triangulate their position, and dispatch a rescue team, but she hopes that the discovery of their dead bodies will prompt an investigation into the anomaly in the extraction pit. [[spoiler: The trio is promptly rescued by the Navy submarine USS Charlotte, which was stationed three miles away on a classified mission.]]

''Deception Point'' is a 2001 novel by DanBrown, published between AngelsAndDemons and TheDaVinciCode.

** What other famous [[TheChessmaster chess master]] Lawrence tries to make thing better but ended up screwing up big time and killed a bunch of innocent people? [[Theater/RomeoAndJuliet Hm...]]

* HistoryMarchesOn - Although NASA is still around, as of 2014, it's suffering massive budget cuts while the private space companies that aligned with Sexton in the stories are playing a larger role in US space exploration. [[HarsherInHindsight In other words, Sexton is winning.]]

* ExitPursuedByABear/JustDesserts: Both [[spoiler:Delta-Two and Delta-Three]] wind up being eaten by sharks near the end.

* BigBad: [[spoiler:Senator Sexton might be a {{Jerkass}}, but William Pickering serves as the story's true Big Bad, orchestrated the conspiracy [[WellIntentionedExtremist in order to keep NASA afloat]].]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler:Senator Thomas Sedgewick Sexton]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler:William Pickering]]

----

** What other famous [[TheChestmaster chess master]] Lawrence tries to make thing better but ended up screwing up big time and killed a bunch of innocent people? [[Theater/RomeoAndJuliet Hm...]]

* GovernmentConspiracy - [[spoiler:Subverted, seeing as Pickering acted without the government's knowledge.]]
* HistoryMarchesOn - Although NASA is still around, as of 2013, it's suffering massive budget cuts while the private space companies that aligned with Sexton in the stories are playing a larger role in US space exploration. [[HarsherInHindsight In other words, Sexton is winning.]]

** The novel mentions special "Improvised munitions"- weapons that are capable of firing water at sufficient speed to shatter bones or turn sand or ice into bullets. In reality, "Improvised Munitions" in military jargon means something else entirely, and of those possibilities mentioned, only the first one is remotely feasible: turning sand into glass bullets would require a power source too big to conveniently carry and ice bullets were shown to be ineffective by {{Mythbusters}}.

Rachel Sexton is a single, attractive Intelligence Analyst for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). She has a strained relationship (with good reason) with her father, Senator Sedgewick Sexton, who's currently running for President against the incumbent President Zachary Herney. The Senator has been gradually gaining support due to focusing on an overlooked issue: the fact that {{NASA}} has cost the tax payers billions of dollars that would have been better spent elsewhere with little results beyond a string of blunders and "pictures of space dust". Sexton denounces Herney's enthusiastic support of NASA as harmful and plans upon election to dismantle NASA and open up space exploration to the private sector, something that obviously causes a lot of people to fear the worst.

*** It gets worse when you consider Canada has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFS_Alert military base]] there... and said military base is specifically a '''signals intelligence intercept facility''' that is jointly run with CSEC (Canada's equivalent of the NSA)

*** It gets worse when you consider Canada has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFS_Alert military base]] there.