Date first published	3 November 2005
ISBN Number	0 75285 749 5 h/b 0 75286 788 1 p/b
Page Count	496 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

What do you do, with a crazed CIA black operative? Kill him or lock him and the secrets within his head away for ever.

Hal Ambler has been on the island for a little over two years. The problem is, that he isn't crazy, although the psycho therapy he is having is gradually eroding his memory, of who he is and what he was.

With the help of a friendly nurse, Ambler escapes first his drug induced prison, and then the island prison where he has been kept. However his problems are only just starting, as all his old friends and contacts don't remember him. Worse is to come as when he first sees himself in a mirror the face he sees is not the face he remembers.

Whilst trying to sort out who he is, and what he did to end up on the island, he finds that he is a target, from not only his own agency but also the Chinese.

Meanwhile, the CIA has appointed Clay Caston to find out about the escape. Caston is not your typical CIA agent though. He's an accountant, who finds the missing links through the boring drudgery of mundane paperwork and requisitions. Caston is meticulous to the point of obsession, however Caston finds anomalies, and Caston hates anomalies. Hal Ambler is an anomaly.

Caston and Ambler become conspirators of necessity, when they both realise that Ambler is part of a much bigger anomaly, one that could plunge the world into a new Cold War with the Chinese.

Review

The story is split into two segments. Hals life(?) on the island, drugged to the eyeballs, and undergoing psychiatric treatment to help him recover. The other segment covers international politics, and the threat of China as the new global power. Within the CIA a plot is hatched, in line with the Peoples Liberation Army to assassinate the Chinese President. The CIA want him dead because he threatens the Americas Global Power, whilst the PLA want him dead, as he sweeps away the old corrupt regime.

The story gradually converges, on an international trade meeting, where the reality of who Ambler is, is finally revealed. Funnily enough, it is as the book reaches the final chapters at the conference that it loses pace, and a lot of the tension that has been built up. It is my guess that the arrival at Davos, is where Ludlum had got to just before his death.

The story ends with an anti climax, and a twist, that once read makes some of the earlier parts of the book make sense. Why does Laurel take to Ambler, why does she think he is innocent, amongst all the others? Well the answer is there in the latter parts of the final two chapters, and I won't spoil it for you.

The book unlike a lot of current American authors, doesn't rely on the wonders of technology to get Ambler from a to b. In fact virtually no technology is used, apart from the internet, and it's usage is limited to what it is in real life a tool, to get information. Unlike Clancy whose recent books have relied on infallible technology, and American superiority to get the results, this book relies on an individuals guile.

Apart from Ambler there are two main characters. Laurel, is the nurse who helps him to escape, and whom he eventually falls in love with, after turning to for help, when he finds that his whole existence has been erased. Laurel is a strong person, who Ambler turns to for support and help, and is in some ways reminiscent of his other strong female character - Marie from the Bourne trilogy. It is unusual for there to be a strong female character in a book written by a man, especially in this particular genre.

Caston. What to say about him. Well he is a royal pain in the butt. Fastidious, obsessive, but in his own way just as deadly as Ambler. Whilst agents may cover there tracks in the field, they often forget the paper trail they leave, the train tickets not used, a cash withdrawal from somewhere they weren't supposed to be. It is this trail that Caston follows, and with great success.

The other characters are filled in only to the extent that is needed to identify the why's and wherefores of the plot. The foreign characters are not stereotypes, as are found in the later Clancy books, and are believable people.

The first 30 chapters of the book are fine, well written, pacy with a touch of edginess, that you come to expect from Ludlum at his best. The last two do suffer somewhat, the pace is lost, and although the style is similar it does not have the same feel. Unfortunately, whilst the story gets to what I would guess was Ludlums final point something has been lost, which is unfortunate.

However as I said at the start, I liked the book, it was a good read, with some intriguing characters, and good plot line.

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