The Ambler Warning - Softcover

Ludlum, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752867881 ISBN 13: 9780752867885

Publisher: Orion, 2005

Synopsis

On Parrish Island, a restricted island off the coast of Virginia, there is a little known and never visited psychiatric facility. There, far from prying eyes, the government stores former intelligence employees whose psychiatric state make them a danger to their own government, people whose ramblings might endanger ongoing operations or prove dangerously inconvenient. One of these employees, former Consular Operations agent Hal Ambler is kept heavily medicated and closely watched. But, there's one difference between Hal and the other patients - Hal isn't crazy. With the help of a sympathetic nurse, Hal manages to first clear his mind of the drug-induced haze and then pulls off a daring escape. Now he's out to discover who stashed him here and why - but the world he returns to isn't the one he remembers. Friends and longtime associates don't remember him, there are no official record of Hal Ambler, and, when he first sees himself in the mirror, the face that looks back at him is not the one he knows as his own.

About this title

Review:

The Ambler Warning, like many of Robert Ludlum's thrillers, gets much of its sense from our knowledge that intelligence agencies cannot be trusted to play fair even by their own. Hal Ambler is held in a facility for insane agents and is himself being drugged to a point where he cannot trust his own crumbling sanity. Even when he escapes, he is unable to be sure of his own past and identity--his very face is not as he remembers, let alone his fishing cabin and the friends of his youth. Something has been made from the wreckage of his mind, and he is not sure whether every step he takes may not be a part of someone else's plan. By contrast, Caston is the sort of intelligence agent who despises the Hal Amblers of this world--he is an accountant who follows the money of assassination and terror round the world while sitting in front of a monitor. Yet he too starts to get a sense that he is being used.

Part of the originality and strength of Ludlum's new thriller is that he always knows when to pull surprises like the eventual alliance of Caston and Ambler--two dangerously flawed and partial men in search of knowledge and also of wholeness. The glimpses of the great world of political innovation, and the theories that inform them, also give this rather more thoughtfulness than we saw in, say, Ludlum's recent Bourne books. ---Roz Kaveney

Review:

" Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film... slickly paced... all consuming." -- "Entertainment Weekly"
" "
" Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined." -- "The New York Times" " Serves as a fine introduction for those unfamiliar with those works actually written by Ludlum during his lifetime." -- Bookreporter.com

" An intense, powerful novel, rich in detail, complex plotting, and characterization... chilling... the rapid pace of this book and the exhilarating twists to the story make it next to impossible to put down... excellent." -- "Affaire de Coeur"

"Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film slickly paced all consuming."--"Entertainment Weekly"
" "
"Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined."--"The New York Times" "Serves as a fine introduction for those unfamiliar with those works actually written by Ludlum during his lifetime."--Bookreporter.com
"An intense, powerful novel, rich in detail, complex plotting, and characterization chilling the rapid pace of this book and the exhilarating twists to the story make it next to impossible to put down excellent."--"Affaire de Coeur""

Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film slickly paced all consuming. "Entertainment Weekly"

Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined. "The New York Times"

Serves as a fine introduction for those unfamiliar with those works actually written by Ludlum during his lifetime. "Bookreporter.com"

An intense, powerful novel, rich in detail, complex plotting, and characterization chilling the rapid pace of this book and the exhilarating twists to the story make it next to impossible to put down excellent. "Affaire de Coeur""

Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film slickly paced all consuming. Entertainment Weekly

Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined. The New York Times

Serves as a fine introduction for those unfamiliar with those works actually written by Ludlum during his lifetime. Bookreporter.com

An intense, powerful novel, rich in detail, complex plotting, and characterization chilling the rapid pace of this book and the exhilarating twists to the story make it next to impossible to put down excellent. Affaire de Coeur

"

"Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film...slickly paced...all consuming." --Entertainment Weekly

"Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined." --The New York Times

"Serves as a fine introduction for those unfamiliar with those works actually written by Ludlum during his lifetime." --Bookreporter.com

"An intense, powerful novel, rich in detail, complex plotting, and characterization...chilling...the rapid pace of this book and the exhilarating twists to the story make it next to impossible to put down...excellent." --Affaire de Coeur

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0752867881
• ISBN 13: 9780752867885
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496