Never say die, Robert L. The Ludlum Archive lives on, with more promised from the St. Martin’s Supremacy! And all of it...
Memorably unbelievable twists in the late Ludlum’s plots must include the note on The Sigma Protocol [ordering info—if it looks right; if not, then below], his far-from-farewell novel’s title page: “Final Revision June 4, 2001.” Only Ludlum can die in Naples, Florida, on March 12, 2001, and revise his book three months later. Or did he fake his fatal cardiac arrest so that, like deathproof Jason Bourne (The Bourne Ultimatum, 1990), he could slip into retirement hidden from psychotic terrorists like Carlos the Jackal—and maybe from Kirkus Reviews?
Belted into his Burberry waterproof, fresh batteries in his Toshiba laptop, Ludlum throws us into his phosphoric paranoia. His first paragraphs whirl their blades and off we lift. You are in the Sigma Conspiracy! Somebody is out to destroy you—and not who you think. But sagacious investment banker Ben Hartman, 36, son of multibillionaire Max Hartman, 80, and survivor of his identical twin brother Peter’s death in a plane crash, arrives in Zurich, desperately bored. Stepping out of his hotel for a breather, Ben sees old Princeton drinking buddy Jimmy Cavanaugh pull out a Walther PPK [PPK is right?] and try to shoot him, right on the Bahnhofsträsse [check accent]. “This was madness, absolute madness!” Ben races into a crowd. “Suddenly, barely two feet away, a young woman’s forehead exploded in a mist of red.” More innocents spurt blood and fall dead about him. Apocalyptic carnage. Thank heaven, we’re out of the doldrums. But what held back Ludlum’s first massive bloodletting until page eight? The old ticker slowing down? Too much lithium? et’s see: five dead, seven wounded. No, Ben kills Cavanaugh. Six dead. But then Cavanaugh’s body disappears, all blood wiped away! And the cops find Cavanaugh’s gun in Ben’s luggage! And Cavanaugh has no record at Princeton! Jimmy a plant, keeping tabs on Ben? What’s more, Peter’s not dead! Ben’s mind bursts! Now gorgeous Anne Navarro, a Justice Department special investigator, wants to know who’s been knocking off oldsters who are tied together only by their listings in the “Sigma” OSS file. Why does Sigma One kill off these dodderers it calls angeli rebelli? Why is Anne’s new boss Alan Bartlett so sphinxlike? He’s a mole? Is aged Max Hartman tied to Sigma One? My God, Peter, now twice-dead, is shot by an assassin while talking with Ben! Had those dead old guys something to do with a still active SS conspiracy? Why does Sigma One need batches of refugee children? For cellular research on reverse aging? Hair now dark and glossy, is old Max SS? Does Ludlum even know yet? Oh, so many questions! How can a reader sleep?
Never say die, Robert L. The Ludlum Archive lives on, with more promised from the St. Martin’s Supremacy! And all of it revised from the Above?Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-27688-5
Page Count: 528
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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