It begins in Geneva. There American lawyer Joel Converse meets a man he hasn't seen in twenty years, a covert operative who dies violently at his feet, whispering words that hand Converse a staggering legacy of death: "THE GENERALS... THEY'RE BACK... AQUITAINE!" Suddenly Converse is running for his life, alone with the world's most shattering secret. Pursued by anonymous executioners to the dark corners of Europe, he is forced to play a game of survival by blood rules he thought he'd long left behind. One by one, he traces each thread of a deadly progression to the hear of every major government - a network of coordinated global violence that no one believes possible. No one but Converse and the woman he once loved and lost. The only two people on earth who can wrest the world from the iron grasp of Aquitaine.
©2012 Robert Ludlum (P)2012 Random House Audio
"You won't be able to put it down. (Don't ever begin a Ludlum novel if you have to go to work the next day.)" (Chicago Sun-Times)
"Dry Dogfood"
I have always liked Ludlum books but this was too much. I knew it was a long read but didn't expect a book that was mostly filler, just like a cheap dry dogfood. I don't read abridged books but this one really needs to edit out about 40%. They can do that and not lose any of the story,, storyline, or verbal images. Rob Shapario did a decent job with what he had to work with. He must have been really exhausted by the time he finished trying to make this an exciting story. The core story was good but it was very difficult to stay with it all the way to the end.
"It won't let you down."
Like most of Ludlams books, this is hard to put down. Most of the writers that tried to copy his ideas just can't hold water.