Overview
Secret deals are in the making, massive mysterious transactions steeped in corruption and murder. The players stand at the highest pinnacles of global finance and government. It is an unprecedented consolidation of money, power, and ruthlessness. Their ultimate aim: worldwide economic domination and all it entails ... by whatever means necessary. The Matarese dynasty is back in all its glory and evil. And the one man with enough knowledge to stop it, CIA case officer Cameron Pryce, may not have enough time. The Matarese countdown has begun and Pryce's only chance to cut it off is to follow the trail of blood money and stone-cold killers to the heart of this deadly conspiracy. From the Hamptons to Monte Carlo to London's Belgrave Square, Matarese assassins have already struck with brutal efficiency, eliminating all who stand in their way. But on Spain's Costa del Sol, one victim survived long enough to breathe these dying words: "Find Beowulf Agate" - words that reverberate all the way to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Beowulf Agate is the code name for legendary retired agent Brandon Scofield, the only man ever to penetrate the Matarese and survive. Now Cameron Pryce has to draw Scofield and his wife, Antonia, out of their Caribbean paradise hideaway and back to a place they thought thy'd never have to go again - back into the Matarese circle of death. For from the oil fields of the Persian Gulf to the boardrooms of Manhattan, from the hills of Corsica to the halls of power in Washington, the circle is closing, the noose is tightening, the panic is spreading. And Pryce has made a chilling discovery: the Matarese have broken new ground ... deep inside the CIA.Synopsis
Twenty years ago, top agents from the CIA and KGB banded together to bring down the Matarese Circle, an international cabal of powerbrokers and assassins whose sole objective was to achieve worldwide economic domination. Now the bloody Matarese dynasty is back—and the only man with the power to stop it may have already run out of time....
CIA case officer Cameron Pryce is hot on the trail of the new Matarese alliance. His only chance to terminate its ruthless activities is to follow the trail of blood money and stone-cold killers right to the heart of its deadly conspiracy.
From the Hamptons to London's Belgrave Square, Matarese assassins have already struck with brutal efficiency, eliminating all who stand in their way. Their chain of violence is impossible to stop—until Pryce gets a rare break. One of the Matarese's victims survives long enough to whisper dying words that will blow the case wide open: the top secret code name for legendary retired CIA agent Brandon Scofield—the only man who has ever infiltrated the Matarese inner circle and lived to tell about it.
Library Journal
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Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewNovember 1997
Long considered a master of the international-espionage superthriller, novelist Robert Ludlum has written eight No. 1 New York Times hardcover-fiction bestsellers and 11 No. 1 New York Times paperback-fiction bestsellers. With his latest offering of suspense and high-stakes intrigue, The Matarese Countdown, Ludlum brings back the Matarese, the sinister cabal whose ultimate purpose is worldwide economic domination via a deadly Machiavellian manifesto: by any means necessary.
Originally destroyed by a tenuous KGB-CIA alliance in 1979's The Matarese Circle, the insidious Matarese dynasty has returned in all its glory and evil to the highest reaches of global finance and government. CIA agent Cameron Pryce is the lone man with enough knowledge to stop them, but as the title suggests, he may not have enough time — Matarese assassins have already struck with brutal efficiency, eliminating all who stand in their way.
Pryce's only hope lies in the faint last gasp of a dying victim of the Matarese: "Find Beowulf Agate...." "Beowulf Agate," as Pryce soon discovers, is the code name for retired field agent Brandon Scofield, the only man ever to penetrate the Matarese organization and survive. Now Pryce must draw Scofield and his wife out of their blissful Caribbean paradise and back into a place they never thought they would have to go again: the chilling Matarese circle of death.
Reaching from the oil fields of the Persian Gulf to the boardrooms of Manhattan, from the hills of Corsicato the halls ofpower in Washington, the circle is closing, and the panic is spreading. And Pryce has made a shocking new discovery: The Matarese conspiracy may have penetrated further than anyone could have imagined — to deep within the very walls of CIA headquarters itself.