From Publishers Weekly
After a 30-year career that engendered dozens of bestselling novels of international intrigue, Ludlum died in the spring of 2001, just before publication of The Cassandra Compact, the second title in the Covert-One biotech series. This third Covert-One opus co-written with spy novelist Gayle Lynds (Mosaic), who also worked on the first Covert-One epic, The Hades Factor reprises the over-the-top, almost parodic tone of its predecessors with more antics from undercover agent army Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, M.D. A horrific explosion destroys the Paris lab of computer genius Emile Chambord on the eve of his breakthrough in the development of a revolutionary molecular DNA computer that has the ability to control virtually all the world's computerized operations. Overnight, military satellites, international data banks and worldwide communications threaten to crash. Faced with the enormity of this malevolent power play, Dr. Jon Smith sets out to find the perpetrators. Arriving in Paris just as Chambord's daughter, Th‚rŠse, is being abducted, Smith trails the terrorists to Toledo, Spain. Just when this thrilling setup promises a return to vintage Ludlum, Smith's corny pals, CIA spook Randi Russell and British MI6 spy Peter Howell, pop up and they all go bumbling across Europe to avert a nuclear holocaust. Gainsaying the old saw, "You can't take it with you," Ludlum bequeaths yet another ghostly burlesque of his fabled plotting talents.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Praise for Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor (Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds): 'The new team has a pop hit on their hands that should bounce right up the bestseller lists.' Kirkus Reviews Praise for Robert Ludlum 'A writer who bests the bestsellers.' Daily Telegraph 'An ingenious storyteller with a wonderful and convincing imagination.' Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather Praise for Gayle Lynds 'Move over Ian Fleming ... an engrossing story of international intrigue with (at last) a female heroine who can hold her own.' New Woman
When a very popular author begins to write books in tandem, it's usually a bad sign: a signal that the better-known author has come up with a brief synopsis, which is subsequently worked up to a full-length novel by the lesser-known name on the jacket. But this thriller successfully bucks this sorry trend: Ludlum's input may have been minimal, but Lynds has fashioned a solid facsimile of the former's bestselling style: blunt, action-packed and, most importantly, crammed full of the express-train pace that distinguished such Ludlum winners as The Osterman Weekend and The Bourne Identity. This third novel in the Covert-One sequence begins with a detonation in the Pasteur Institute in Paris. A computer scientist has gone missing, while top cyber-specialist Marty Zellerbach lies in a coma. A close friend of the latter, Lt-Col. John Smith, plans to leave his important DNA work in Colorado to travel to Paris, but is handed an assignment by Covert-One's Head Honcho, Klein: track down the missing scientist, creator of a molecular computer. But those behind the bombing have other ideas, and the stakes are very high: nothing less than a radical re-making of Europe and the total annihilation of the United States. Subtlety? Very little. High-octane action? Bags of it, leavened with the kind of narrative energy that makes Ludlum's thrillers such invigorating experiences. It's a massive book, but it reads like a novella - and that's what we all read thrillers like this for, isn't it? (Kirkus UK)
Third in the late Ludlum's co-authored paperback original series centered on Covert-One and begun with Ludlum/Lynds's The Hades Factor (2000) and the Ludlum/ Philip Shelby The Cassandra Compact (2001). In Paris, Dr. Emile Chambord of the Pasteur Institute successfully finishes his research into a DNA computer faster than all the chips on earth put together. When terrorists-if they are terrorists-blow up the Institute, Chambord disappears. Meanwhile, the satellite network monitoring all Western bombers over Europe and all AWACS, P-3 Orion, and U-2 aircraft crashes for five minutes before returning onscreen. Lt. Col. Jon Smith, agent of Covert-One, is sent to Paris to find Dr. Chambord and discovers that the doctor has not only vanished but his beautiful daughter, Therese, has been kidnapped from her fancy digs. Dare we say that the threat of nuclear holocaust puts "civilization as we know it" in the balance? Hey, with Afterlife Author Robert Ludlum at the keyboard, why hold back? As with The Hades Factor, Lynds offers cloth-of-velvet moods and descriptive passages of various European cities, medicating much of Bipolar Bob's multidimensional paranoid sensibility. Tops in the series. Keep those particles streaming, Bob. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
