The Bancroft Strategy (Thorndike Paperback Bestsellers) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Robert Ludlum (Author)

Book Description

Series: Thorndike Paperback Bestsellers | Publication Date: December 2007

In the tradition of such Ludlum classics as The Chancellor Manuscript and The Icarus Agenda, The Bancroft Strategy is a compelling novel of intrigue, where two figures find themselves facing a shadowy organization working to twist global politics to their own unsavory ends. 
When Todd Belknap - a legendary field agent for Consular Operations with a reputation as something of a cowboy - is cut loose from the agency after an operation goes wrong, his best friend and fellow agent is abducted in Lebanon by a militia group with a vicious reputation. When the government refuses to either rescue him or negotiate for his release, Belknap decides to take matters into his own hands.
Meanwhile, hedge fund analyst Andrea Bancroft gets a surprising call - she is to receive an unexpected bequest of six million dollars from a cousin she never met. With one condition -- she must agree to sit on the board of the Bancroft family foundation, a charitable organization that is run by the family patriarch, Paul Newton. Having never been involved with, or even met, the family - her mother was briefly married to an Bancroft and cut off all contact many years ago - Andrea is intrigued. But the foundation, which is dedicated to doing strategic good deeds, appears less and less benign the more deeply involved she gets. What exactly is their involvement with the "Genesis" - a mysterious group working to destabilize the geopolitical balance at the risk of millions of lives? As events escalate, Todd Belknap and Andrea Bancroft come together and must form an uneasy alliance if they are to uncover the truth behind "Genesis" -- before it is too late.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The latest international thriller to appear under Ludlum's name, with its by-the-numbers plot and stereotypical characters, fails to do justice to the late author, who made his mark with such taut and compelling novels as The Scarlatti Inheritance and The Bourne Identity. Maverick U.S. intelligence agent Todd Belknap, known as the Hound for his superior ability to track his quarry, heads to Lebanon to try to find a fellow agent who has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Andrea Bancroft, a brainy and beautiful hedge-fund analyst who has agreed to serve on the board of her family's mysterious foundation, begins to suspect that behind the Bancroft Foundation's benevolent facade lie sinister conspiracies. Unsurprisingly, those conspiracies intersect with Belknap's search. Throw in a secret cabal controlling world events and a high body count, and you have predictable genre fare. 600,000 first printing. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

More from the supernaturally prolific Ludlum, who died in 2001 but continues to produce books from beyond the grave (with the help of ghostwriters and uncredited manuscript polishers). This one's about a former intelligence agent who goes out on his own to rescue a colleague being held by mercenaries. Meanwhile, a banker is poised to inherit a big pile of cash, except that to get the money, she has to serve on the board of a shady family foundation. All the ingredients of overripe Ludlum are here: stodgy dialogue, overwritten exposition, and characters who seem waiting for an actor to bring them to life. For die-hard fans only. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 792 pages
• Publisher: Large Print Distribution (December 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594132097
• ISBN-13: 978-1594132094
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,378,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After a successful career in the theatre, Robert Ludlum launched his career as a best-selling writer with THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE in 1971, the first of twenty-two consecutive international bestsellers. Robert sadly passed away in March 2001.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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

By 

Rudy "pain-doc" (Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bancroft Strategy (Hardcover)

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.

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

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bancroft Strategy (Hardcover)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Gives Ludlum a Bad Name, November 15, 2007

By 

Patrick F. McTernan (Honolulu, HI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bancroft Strategy (Hardcover)

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.