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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating global spy thriller - but Ludlum died in 2001; who's actual author?, November 14, 2006
This is as exciting and convoluted as any of the master's thrillers; prior reviewers have detailed the story sufficiently. I'll only add that the plot's twists, turns and surprises continue right on up to the final paragraph in the epilogue.
Although I enjoyed the story immensely, I had the sense that the action scenes lacked the "Ludlum Strategy" of realism and credibility [after all, how can many times can one super-agent overwhelm four or more opponents singlehandedly; or one untrained woman knock out two professional killers?].
On checking the book's front pages, I learn that the 'Ludlum Estate' (the author died 12-Mar-01 in Naples, FL) commissioned a "qualified author and editor"; the unanswered question remains whether this book -- prominently displaying Ludlum's name -- is an updated previously unpublished manuscript, a thriller developed from a premortem story outline, or whether the commissioned author wrote this book singlehandedly.
If this is indeed an original de-novo piece of writing, then the true author deserves not only a great deal of credit, but ought to publish under his/her own name rather than remain anonymous; s(he) would make a genuine contribution as an independent, skilled and accomplished writer of thrillers. I have the uncomfortable gut sense that this ship may be flying under a false flag ... unless and until the authorship provenance is more fully clarified.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In Spite of What Some Reviewers Say, I liked it a Lot, November 18, 2006
Robert Ludlum is easily the best and most prolific dead writer in the world. I've heard that when he died he left behind a number of unfinished book ideas. I've heard that his estate then hired an as yet unidentified author to take these ideas and put them into book format. I've also heard that this author has used up all of Ludlum's unfinished ideas and now is using his own plot lines but carefully following the Ludlum formula of how a book should be written.
At any case, this is a post Ludlum novel published under his name (with a trademark symbol). How good it is depends on the reader, which is, I guess the story for any book. A lot of reviewers will say this book is absolute trash.
This book follows the Ludlum formula of a super agent in trouble with his agency. Enter a young lady with no secret agent experience or training but with expertise in some allied field that will be of great help to the agent. Add in a chase through exotic locations and you have a classic Ludlum story.
As for my own opinion, I think I like the new Ludlum's better than I did the originals, especially those published towards the end of his life. The new author seem to have new and refreshing ideas about how to take the familiar Ludlum situations and put them in a new light.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Gives Ludlum a Bad Name, November 15, 2007
I was a long-time Robert Ludlum fan, and I am disgusted by this rubbish being published in his name. Everything about this novel is wrong. It has none of the pacing, character development, characters, dialogue or descriptive passages that were the hallmark of the novels written by the author while he was alive. It is possible that this novel was based on some vague outline prepared by the author while he lived, but it seems almost certain that none of it was fleshed out by him personally, or if it was, it must have been left on his pile of discards. More likely, this is a story made up out of whole cloth by the publisher or a ghost writer, based on a completely misguided perception of what Robert Ludlum's "formula" was. Even more likely still, the book was written by someone who had never even read a Robert Ludlum novel, and wrote the book based on someone else's description of what a Robert Ludlum novel was like. True Robert Ludlum novels were taut thrillers whose protagonists typically acted and sounded like real people caught up in extraordinary events that confused, disoriented, and often terrified them. Robert Ludlum took the time to develop the plot and the characters in tandem, so that the protagonists' response to unfolding events made sense within the context of their background and development. They were never glib, smug, comic book superheroes, as in this novel -- not even Jason Bourne, whose extraordinary skills were moderated by the handicap of his memory loss and, in the initial novel, his fear that he was a despicable human being who murdered people for a living. Everything that was enthralling about good Robert Ludlum novels is lacking in this posthumous publication. In particular, the dialogue is a huge disappointment. It reads as though it was written by a Brit, not an American, and is more akin to the flip, "clever" dialogue from a bad James Bond movie (ala Roger Moore). To those who truly appreciated Robert Ludlum while he lived, I would suggest you pass on this particular novel. Better to re-read one of the books he wrote himself.
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