The Sigma Protocol - Softcover

Ludlum, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752848135 ISBN 13: 9780752848136

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2002

Synopsis

American investment banker Ben Hartman, son of legendary Max Hartman, who built a financial empire up from next to nothing, is on holiday in Switzerland when he meets a childhood friend who promptly tries to kill him. Ben narrowly survives the attempt, and when he wakes up he discovers that the body and all evidence of the confrontation has disappeared. But this is only the beginning...Anna Navarro, a US government agent, is sent to look into a string of deaths of old men around the world. The only thing the victims have in common is an old OSS file, codenamed SIGMA. But as soon as she starts to get somewhere, she is dragged off the case and declared rogue. Someone wants this secret kept, and not only the future of Hartman and Navarro is at stake, but that of the world...

About this title

Review

Robert Ludlum's trademark skills of intricate plotting, breakneck pacing, and high-wire drama are all on display in this gripping thriller. After his twin brother dies in a plane crash, Ben Hartman reluctantly takes his place in the investment firm started by their father, a Holocaust survivor. But then an old college buddy tries to kill Ben on a crowded Zurich street, setting off a chain of events that ultimately leads Ben into the thick of a worldwide conspiracy. Behind it is Sigma, a multinational cartel built on the rubble of World War II by industrialists and financiers bent on exploiting wartime technology and protecting their wealth from the threat of communism.

Accompanied by a beautiful American justice department agent, Ben eludes the assassins on his trail and follows Sigma's tentacles across Europe, to Brazil, Washington, and finally to a sanitarium known as the Clockworks in the Austrian Alps, where the horrifying agenda of a perverted new world order is revealed. Ludlum, who died between the writing and publishing of this book, was a master of the genre he helped popularize, and The Sigma Protocol shows him at the peak of his craft. --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover

"Dazzling."―Publishers Weekly

Ben Hartman is vacationing in Zurich, Switzerland when he chances upon his old friend Jimmy Cavanaugh―a madman who's armed and programmed to assassinate. In a matter of minutes, six innocent bystanders are dead. So is Cavanaugh. But when his body vanishes, and his weapon mysteriously appears in Hartman's luggage, Hartman is plunged into an unfathomable nightmare...

"Vintage Ludlum."―Houston Chronicle

Meanwhile, Anna Navarro, field agent for the Department of Justice, has been asked to investigate the sudden, random deaths of eleven men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them? A secret file, over a half-century old, that's linked to the CIA―and is marked with the same puzzling codename: Sigma.

"Ludlum still dominates the field in adventure-drenched thrillers."―Chicago Tribune

As Anna follows the connecting thread―and Hartman finds himself on the run―she ends up in the shadows of a relentless killer who is one step ahead of her...victim by victim. Now, she and Hartman together must uncover the diabolical secrets long held behind Sigma. It will threaten everything they think they know about themselves―and confirm their very worst fears...
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Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0752848135
• ISBN 13: 9780752848136
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 624