Date first published	2002
ISBN Number	0 752 84595 0
Page Count	547 h/b
h/b= hardback : p/b= paperback

Storyline

Peter Janson is a retired operative, now a highly sought after and extremely selective security specialist. The spy game ended up costing him everything that was most important to him and it would take a lot to lure him back into it. Unfortunately, the one person to whom Janson's personal debt is so large that he could require anything of Janson is calling in his marker. Peter Novak, the legendary Hungarian immigrant and head of the Liberty Foundation - an immensely rich man who uses his wealth to rebuild and foster the growth of democratic ideals in the most ravaged and war-torn spots around the globe - has been kidnapped and faces execution at the hands of terrorist extremists.

It is up to Janson to rescue him before Novak is murdered. Janson puts together a top team immediately and manages the nearly impossible task of extricating Novak, but something goes horribly wrong, something that indicates that his operation has been compromised from the start - and only Janson himself survives.

Now the major intelligence services think that Janson was responsible for Novak's death and are sending their finest operatives after him.If Janson is to survive, and to avenge Novak's murder, he must unravel the twisted truth that lies behind the legend that is and was Peter Novak. Because it appears that Novak is somehow, inexplicably, still alive and speaking publicly. And something serious is about to happen - something that threatens to change the course of history itself.

Review

The story is pretty standard Ludlum fair. Lone man against a hidden army of enemies, some of whom he has worked with before, and of course a government conspiracy working in the background.

It is quite interesting to follow the rescue of Novak, as it all goes reasonably well. The operation is not perfect as things within the compound have changed meaning that Janson has to improvise. However once out of the Stone Fortress you wonder what the rest of the book will be about. The death or not of Novak soon changes that.

The book is filled with likeable characters, including Janson and Grigori Berman, and Jessie Kincaid. Matched against them is Alan Demerest, a man executed on Jansons evidence, an evil man, slightly psychotic, even at the start, now a man enraged at the loss of his own identity, but a man with infinite power and resources.

Dialogue throughout the book is evenly mannered, and less prone to the yelling at anyone and everyone that was a characteristic of books written by Ludlum.

In some ways this is the Tredstone project reborn, in this case men trained to operate under permanent cover to sort out issues that the US could never hope to solve in a direct manor. Like Tredstone however the planners of Mobious, have not planned for the unseen. In Bourne, it was his serious head injury, in this story it is the undercover agent freeing himself of the controls, and taking control of the project.

Janson is a man riddled with guilt, disillusioned with what he has become, or is he scared of becoming the thing he loathes most, Alan Demerest? I'll leave you to decide.

A good light read, some interesting twists and turns, you do unfortunately guess who Novak really is a bit too early but never mind. Not an outstanding work, but certainly worth the money.

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