Overview
Robert Ludlum is the acknowledged master of suspense and international intrigue. For over thirty years, in over twenty international bestsellers, he has a set a standard that has never been equaled. Now, with the Prometheus Deception, he proves that he is at the very pinnacle of his craft.Nicholas Bryson spent years as a deep cover operative for the American secret intelligence group, the Directorate. After critical undercover mission went horribly wrong, Bryson was retired to a new identity. Years later, his closely held cover is cracked and Bryson learns that the Directorate was not what it claimed - that he was a pawn in a complex scheme against his own country's interests. Now, it has become increasingly clear that the shadowy Directorate is headed for some dangerous endgame - but no one knows precisely who they are and what they are planning. With Bryson their only possible asset, the director of the CIA recruits Bryson to find, reinfiltrate, and stop the Directorate. But after years on the sidelines, Bryson's field skills are rusty, his contacts unreliable, and his instincts suspect.
With everything he thought he knew about his own life in question, Bryson is all alone in a wilderness of mirrors - unsure what is and isn't true and who, if anyone, he can trust - with the future of millions in the balance.
With everything he thought he knew about his own life in question, Bryson is all alone in a wilderness of mirrors - unsure what is and isn't true and who, if anyone, he can trust - with the future of millions in the balance.
Editorials
Chicago Tribune
Rarely has any writer of espionage novels come up with such an ambitious design that churns on so many levels.Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film: The action is so slickly paced, the political details so all-consuming, the weapons and women so blatently steeped in sex appeal...all in the name of discovering a truth that involves complicated weapons, wiley governments, and buxom blondes. Hey, works for us. B+— (Entertainment Weekly)
Publishers Weekly -
Ludlum goes full throttle in this frantically paced, if somewhat hollow, tale of one man's efforts to thwart the forces of world domination. That man is Nick Bryson, a retired operative for the Directorate, the most secretive of the world's many private intelligence agencies. Now working in the peaceful halls of academe, Bryson is stunned when the CIA informs him that the Directorate, to which he pledged his loyalty for nearly 20 years, was actually a Russian front. Worse yet, the organization seems to be stockpiling weapons for a secret assault on the West. When Bryson agrees to help the CIA bring down the Directorate, he's hurled into a series of hair-raising episodes that take him from one world capital to another. With assassins snapping at his heels, Bryson watches in horror as tragedy follows him wherever he goes--an anthrax outbreak in Vienna, a passenger train blown up outside Paris, a jetliner falling from the sky over New York City. Could these terrorist attacks be the work of the Directorate, Bryson wonders, or should they be attributed to the Prometheans, another shadowy intelligence outfit that seems to be the force behind a new international surveillance agency? Catapulting from one action sequence to the next and culminating in a spectacular finale in Seattle, the story is an exciting showcase for all the latest spy gadgetry, but it has little of the contemplative quality and social context of Ludlum's finer efforts. Ludlum's cautionary theme--that technology will soon allow for surveillance on a scale that grossly infringes on personal privacy--gets lost in the barrage of flying bullets and explosions. Bryson himself is a dynamo and lots of fun to watch in action, but his almost superhuman endurance and intelligence seem more suited to that other heroic gentleman of adventure, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, than to a Ludlum hero. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Library Journal
After 22 novels, Ludlum (The Hades Factor) delivers yet again a topnotch international thriller sure to please fans of popular entertainment. Trust no one. These are the words that Nicholas Bryson, former deep-cover black ops specialist for a shadowy group called the Directorate, must live by when he learns that the covert agency he has served for much of his life, and which has forced him out after a disastrous mission, is not what he had always thought. Instead of being a hero, he learns that he was used as a pawn by forces inimical to the United States. With his life now a massive deception, he is driven by revenge and a need to understand the past into a desperate search for those responsible. But what he discovers is much worse than anything he might have imagined. This is a rousing thriller with all the trademarks of a Ludlum best seller--heart-pounding chase scenes, devastating double-crosses, gut-wrenching twists, fast-paced action, fierce confrontations, pressure that ratchets up to an explosive conclusion, and, as always, authentic international locales, high-tech gadgetry, and sophisticated spycraft. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/00.]--Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\New Yorker
...his most ingenious novel yet...In just a few scenes...Ludlum instills a year's worth of Harvard Business Reviews, and provides a dead-on picture of contemporary corporate strategy...Ludlum has been among the very few novelists who have taken the trouble and write about such market forces. Two hundred million copies later, the market has returned the compliment.From the Publisher
"Welcome to Robert Ludlum's world…fast pacing, tight plotting, international intrigue" --Cleveland Plain Dealer "Muller's voice keeps the tension building and conveys a menacing yet thoughtful edge that pulls listeners into the action."--AudioFile "Rarely has any writer of espionage novels come up with such an ambitious design that churns on so many levels." --Chicago Tribune
"Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six pack of thriller writers combined." --New York Times