As with many of Ludlum's later books, we've seen this all before in various permutations. Double crosses, triple crosses, lost loves and immense conspiracies. As always, Ludlum is enjoyable but although it turned out that I'd never read this one, I kept feeling like I had. ( )

Ludlum is an acknowledged master of spy thrillers and intrigue, another favorite genre of mine. I haven’t read any for several years, but got started on this one, and became caught up in the levels of deception. Nick Bryson is a top agent for a super-secret agency called the Directorate. He is retired after a deep-cover operation goes awry and is given a new identity as professor in a small college. Several years later, his former agent instincts still intact, he realizes he is being shadowed by other agents apparently determined to kidnap him — at least that’s his initial impression. He eludes their trap, only to be approached more civilly by their boss, the head of the CIA, who has a fantastic story to tell. It appears that Bryson had been working for a Russian mole operation that recruited American citizens for super- secret operations that were supposedly in the American national interest: the Directorate. The CIA discovered this hidden agency only after examination of files following the fall of the Soviet Union. Bryson is stunned and agrees to work for the CIA to determine what the Directorate is now planning; evidence has mounted they are still operating and planning some kind of major action. (Ludlum never explains how Bryson could just vanish from his college, but, as with most books in this genre, a certain suspension of belief is necessary. Bryson is also the luckiest man alive because he happens to notice things just before his head is about to get blown off. He should have been a professional gambler; the way he beats the odds, he could have been rich at much less risk.) In a rush to get at the truth and to prevent the machinations of the Directorate, or is it another even more secret organization, Prometheus, he flits from one country to another, followed by assassins and tragedies: anthrax in Vienna, exploding passenger trains, crashing airliners, massive surveillance of everything we do.

As it turns out, the Directorate is one of the good guys, but in one of those ironies so typical of these great conspiracy theory books, the good guys have to rely on the web of surveillance networks and hidden conspiracies to prevention of takeover of the world by bad guys who want to legalize the kind of surveillance the Directorate relies on to get the bad guys. I don’t think you can have it both ways. To finally gather the evidence they need, Elena and Nick manage to read through practically the entire British Library in about two hours, something that strained my credulity.

Ludlum seems to have as his theme the dangers of a wired world with its potential for destruction of privacy, but this one lacks the subtlety of his earlier books. But if you like James Bond movies and are willing to suspend reality, you’ll love this book.

( )

This book had a good beginning, bad ending. The whole premise of the book is about secret spy organizations and their machinations. It's cool to see the main character struggle to find out the truth, and as a reader you're just waiting to find out what really is going on.

But about 2/3 into the book big plot points are revealed and then it just goes downhill from there. At this point Ludlum just turns off the credibility factor and turns up the wonkiness. Things that don't make logical sense just keep occurring and characters that have nothing to do with the main plot appear. Even weirder, the baddies keep doing things to the main character that there doesn't seem to be any motivation for. But they do them anyway. Weird. I think Ludlum was trying to go for a cool, wow factor, but it fell flat.

I've read a few Ludlum books right now, and I think his earlier books must be his best because his later books just don't seem that good. ( )

pretty good, though old tricks

Well I don’t know about lost, stolen maybe, exploited more like. The whole plot is based on the control of personal, governmental and corporate information. For years a secret consortium has been plotting to take over the private stewardship of all information. They are called the Prometheus Group. The Directive, the agency Bryson was connected with was supposed to expose them.

The P Group is made up of world leaders and corporate leaders and their plan is finally coming together only Bryson is in their face. They try to eliminate him but of course, they fail. So they all meet at the head man’s estate in Washington. Bryson and his wife break into the place and Bryson sets off an Electro Magnetic Pulse that completely disables all electronics within the compound, including the smart guns all the bad guys have. Only he has a gun that will work. At the same time, he starts a fire. Because the electronics of the super house (so eerily like Bill Gates’s life, it’s scary) are ruined, the conspirators are locked in and they almost all die.

Of course a few escape and turn up just at the end of the novel. The end was stupid. He and the wife are retired to some tropical island and are expecting a baby (gak!). Bryson sees a tiny article in the newspaper and remarks to the wife that it may all be starting up again. Then suddenly the tv comes on and it’s one of the old Prometheus/Directive guys and he’s been monitoring the couple all along. Despite the information that Bryson has lodged with a dozen people around the world, this guy is going to try it all over again.