Product Description

Tyrell Hawthorne was a naval intelligence officer - one of the best - until the rain-swept night in Amsterdam when his wife was murdered, an innocent victim of the games spies play. Now Hawthorne has been called out of retirement for one last assignment. For he is the only man alive who can track down the world's most dangerous terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, deadly - and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop. With the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Amaya's serpentine trail to uncover the sinister network who exist to help this consummate killer. And Hawthorne must discover the shattering truth behind the Scorpio Illusion . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #163533 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

About the Author
After a successful career in the theatre, Robert Ludlum launched his career as a bestselling writer with THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE in 1971, the first of 22 consecutive international bestsellers. Robert sadly passed away in March 2001.

Customer Reviews

One of the good ones
Any fan of Robert Ludlum knows he wrote good ones and, shall we say, not so good ones (especially after he died). This is one of the good ones. The usual formula - exciting plot, great hero, excellent writing.

Poor effort
This is standard fare for Ludlum with the usual shady criminal organisation and global conspiracy background. He often gets these types of plot lines spot on but this is a poor effort by his standards. As I've noticed with a number of his novels, it is littered with inexplicable and unnecessary dialogue which drags on the plot like a lead weight. It is inexcusable to make the reader re-read whole sections due to unfathomable conversations. And why does he use a bewildering number of different names for the same character - eg. Amaya, The Baj, Little Girl Blood....It makes for an immensely turgid read, particularly galling if you have enjoyed his earlier work (I exclude the Bourne books as they suffer excactly the same problems).
This was essentially a simple plot which for the sake of a 100 pages fewer could have rattled along at a more exciting pace.
The additional star is because I finished it as I am usually a fan of Ludlums's work.
NB - get a better proof reader. This was littered with errors, spelling mistakes and the use of incorrect words (The work for crazy is spelt barmy, not balmy (twice!)