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Ludlum goes full throttle in this frantically paced, if somewhat hollow, tale of one man's efforts to thwart the forces of world domination. That man is Nick Bryson, a retired operative for the Directorate, the most secretive of the world's many private intelligence agencies. Now working in the peaceful halls of academe, Bryson is stunned when the CIA informs him that the Directorate, to which he pledged his loyalty for nearly 20 years, was actually a Russian front. Worse yet, the organization seems to be stockpiling weapons for a secret assault on the West. When Bryson agrees to help the CIA bring down the Directorate, he's hurled into a series of hair-raising episodes that take him from one world capital to another. With assassins snapping at his heels, Bryson watches in horror as tragedy follows him wherever he goesAan anthrax outbreak in Vienna, a passenger train blown up outside Paris, a jetliner falling from the sky over New York City. Could these terrorist attacks be the work of the Directorate, Bryson wonders, or should they be attributed to the Prometheans, another shadowy intelligence outfit that seems to be the force behind a new international surveillance agency? Catapulting from one action sequence to the next and culminating in a spectacular finale in Seattle, the story is an exciting showcase for all the latest spy gadgetry, but it has little of the contemplative quality and social context of Ludlum's finer efforts. Ludlum's cautionary themeAthat technology will soon allow for surveillance on a scale that grossly infringes on personal privacyAgets lost in the barrage of flying bullets and explosions. Bryson himself is a dynamo and lots of fun to watch in action, but his almost superhuman endurance and intelligence seem more suited to that other heroic gentleman of adventure, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, than to a Ludlum hero. Major ad/promo. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
After 22 novels, Ludlum (The Hades Factor) delivers yet again a topnotch international thriller sure to please fans of popular entertainment. Trust no one. These are the words that Nicholas Bryson, former deep-cover black ops specialist for a shadowy group called the Directorate, must live by when he learns that the covert agency he has served for much of his life, and which has forced him out after a disastrous mission, is not what he had always thought. Instead of being a hero, he learns that he was used as a pawn by forces inimical to the United States. With his life now a massive deception, he is driven by revenge and a need to understand the past into a desperate search for those responsible. But what he discovers is much worse than anything he might have imagined. This is a rousing thriller with all the trademarks of a Ludlum best sellerDheart-pounding chase scenes, devastating double-crosses, gut-wrenching twists, fast-paced action, fierce confrontations, pressure that ratchets up to an explosive conclusion, and, as always, authentic international locales, high-tech gadgetry, and sophisticated spycraft. Highly recommended.
-DRonnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Ludlum's latest is a spy thriller that should keep even the most experienced readers guessing. Nick Bryson works for an ultrasecret intelligence organization; after making a mistake during a mission, he's put out to pasture. Later, he's brought back into the game by a different intelligence group, and he learns that everything he believed about his former bosses was a lie--until, that is, he discovers that everything the second organization has told him is also a lie. Bryson winds up trying single-handedly to save the world from a shadowy terrorist group, while simultaneously trying to figure out which of the various "good guys" he should believe. Ludlum relies heavily on action scenes to tell this extremely convoluted story: there's plenty of gunplay here, lots of exciting scenes featuring Nick captured, or nearly captured, or running from various bad guys. On the other hand, the scenes in which characters explain the inner workings of international espionage to each other often seem sluggish, full of backstory these professional spies should already know. Readers who have had trouble looking beyond Ludlum's typically thin characters and clunky dialogue will still have problems here, but they will find some compensation: the pace is fast, the action plentiful, and the story confusing enough to keep us turning the pages. For Ludlum's fans, of course, this one's a must-read. David Pitt
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