ROBERT LUDLUM'S THE PARIS OPTION: A COVERT-ONE NOVEL [Paperback]

I found the characters very interesting, but the plot dragged on and on in several places and a lot of the story could have been left out without affecting the meaning at all. Granted, there were several places that got my attention and I waited an extra 5 minutes in the car to see what would happen, but those situations were few and far between.

The one other annoying thing is that the protagonists always seem to win out in the plethora of tight situations they got themselves in to, so by the 4th disc you never had that "edge-of-the-seat" feeling because you knew they'd come out all right. The ending too was very predictable and left me with the feeling that the evil plot should have gone off without a hitch...I know it would have made the book a lot more interesting...though I'd probably have to sit through 12 more discs while they worked that out.

Soon, Jon Smith arrives in Paris and finds his good friend lying near death in a coma. In fact, Jon Smith arrives just in time to prevent a second murder attempt on his friend's life. At the same time, someone apparently using the new computer manages to bring down the entire United States utility and communication grids. Deaf and blind, the United Sates stands vulnerable to attack and the terrorists seem to be seeing how much havoc they can cause before they launch their final cataclysmic strike. With the fate of the world in the balance as well as his friend's life, Jon begins to follow the complex trail to the terrorists and their secret lair.

While that is the premise of what could have been a very enjoyable book, the execution is fatally flawed. Despite it's Bond style ending, much of this book commits the cardinal sin for any thriller. Boredom. This book is an incredible flat, dull read and quite a disappointment. This book is work to read and becomes a long march through the mud of boredom to reach the closing fifty pages that are mediocre at best.

While for long time readers of the late Robert Ludlum it has always been clear that this series did not stand up to Ludlum standards, the other two novels were at least fairly enjoyable. Both The Hades Factor (Coauthor Gayle Lynds) and The Cassandra Compact (coauthor Philip Shelby) while overwritten at times featured plenty of action and engaged the reader at least somewhat. However, in this novel, the overwriting is extremely prevalent throughout the novel and the read is entirely flat and without emotion. Even in scenes where, for example, terrorists are attacking Marty's hospital room, the sense of emotion or nerve-racking danger prevalent in Ludlum works is nowhere apparent.

The boredom factor is enhanced by the fact that released as a large trade paperback; this novel is 425 pages long. One gets the sense that the authors were paid by the word. Or that Gayle Lynds was unable to correctly follow Robert Ludlum's famous multi hundred plus page outline to properly create the work. The result is a novel that is seriously weaker than the first novel of the series, which she co-authored, and a sign that the series may die without the influence of the legendary master.