- Audio Cassette
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Unabridged edition (Nov 15 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 155927610X
- ISBN-13: 978-1559276108
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 13.5 x 6.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 635 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (146 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The Prometheus Deception begins with a deep-cover operative, a beautiful cryptographer with a shadowy past, a government organization that's not what it seems, and an assignment that goes very, very wrong. Nicholas Bryson, a spy for a secret intelligence group known only as the Directorate, has his cover blown on a Tunisian operation and is retired to a new identity: Jonas Barrett, lecturer in Near Eastern history at a small liberal arts college. Five years later, the CIA corners Bryson/Barrett and tells him that his entire 15-year career in the Directorate was a fraud, that the organization was really an elaborate front for the GRU--Soviet military intelligence--and that his former boss, Ted Waller, was actually Gennady Rosovsky, a GRU muckety-muck. Even Bryson's beloved estranged wife, Elena, was actually a Romanian Securitate agent assigned to keep him in line. And now...
"Damn it!" Bryson shouted. "This makes no sense! How ignorant do you think I am? The goddamn GRU, the Russians--that's all in the past. Maybe you Cold War cowboys at Langley haven't yet heard the news--the war's over!"So far so good; after 22 thrillers in this vein, Robert Ludlum could probably have written this one in his sleep. Fortunately for his fans, he was not only awake at the wheel, but ready to race--on a track with more twists and bumps than a roller coaster in an earthquake. The CIA claims it needs Bryson to reinfiltrate the Directorate and help them bring it down, but when Bryson is cornered by an erstwhile Directorate acquaintance aboard a floating arms bazaar and rescued by a woman named Layla just before the ship blows up, he begins to realize how the years of retirement have dulled his formerly keen reaction time. While Bryson cautiously feels (and fights) his way from Virginia to Spain and back again, mistrustful of his new CIA colleagues even as he dodges murder attempts by his former Directorate henchmen, there are rumblings in the hallowed halls of the U.S. Congress. Several respected statesmen are raising a ruckus about widespread invasions of privacy, behind which stand a Seattle software billionaire and a mysterious nexus of power called Prometheus. But is Prometheus allied with the Directorate--or with a different group altogether? Filled with post-Cold War double-crosses, New Economy high jinks, and even a few Wall Street shenanigans thrown in for good measure, The Prometheus Deception is pure old-style Ludlum, repackaged for the new millennium. --Barrie Trinkle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title."Yes," Dunne replied raspily, barely audible. "And for some baffling reason the Directorate is alive and well."
From Publishers Weekly
Ludlum goes full throttle in this frantically paced, if somewhat hollow, tale of one man's efforts to thwart the forces of world domination. That man is Nick Bryson, a retired operative for the Directorate, the most secretive of the world's many private intelligence agencies. Now working in the peaceful halls of academe, Bryson is stunned when the CIA informs him that the Directorate, to which he pledged his loyalty for nearly 20 years, was actually a Russian front. Worse yet, the organization seems to be stockpiling weapons for a secret assault on the West. When Bryson agrees to help the CIA bring down the Directorate, he's hurled into a series of hair-raising episodes that take him from one world capital to another. With assassins snapping at his heels, Bryson watches in horror as tragedy follows him wherever he goesAan anthrax outbreak in Vienna, a passenger train blown up outside Paris, a jetliner falling from the sky over New York City. Could these terrorist attacks be the work of the Directorate, Bryson wonders, or should they be attributed to the Prometheans, another shadowy intelligence outfit that seems to be the force behind a new international surveillance agency? Catapulting from one action sequence to the next and culminating in a spectacular finale in Seattle, the story is an exciting showcase for all the latest spy gadgetry, but it has little of the contemplative quality and social context of Ludlum's finer efforts. Ludlum's cautionary themeAthat technology will soon allow for surveillance on a scale that grossly infringes on personal privacyAgets lost in the barrage of flying bullets and explosions. Bryson himself is a dynamo and lots of fun to watch in action, but his almost superhuman endurance and intelligence seem more suited to that other heroic gentleman of adventure, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, than to a Ludlum hero. Major ad/promo. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Unfortunately, a Stinker,
By
This review is from: The Prometheus Deception (Mass Market Paperback)
This the first of the 'beyond-the-Ludlum-grave' novels. A veritable industry has grown up since his passing in 2001, with uncredited co-authors, 'manuscript-polishers,' etc. working off his outlines of possible novels. The Janson directive is the last original Ludlum novel and it's a page-turner. This book, in contrast, is badly edited, has shop-worn dialogue and poor pacing -- quite disappointing. Don't be fooled and save your money, if it's a Ludlum novel first published after 2002, it's a ghost job and probably bad. Not withstanding the positive reviews above from Amazon, this novel belongs in the recycle bin, it clearly lacks Ludlum's flare and style. He may have started it but probably did not complete the task. Watching the ghost industry publish stuff in a dead author's name is a sad ending for the career for someone who brought so many hours of thrills, spills, and fun.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Whoever edited this book should be spanked.,
By jshock "joeshock" (Appleton, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Prometheus Deception (Mass Market Paperback)
In Austin Powers, Scotty says "You've got a time machine, why don't you just go back and shoot him when he's on the crapper!" That's how I felt after reading this book. --SPOILER ALERT-- Can someone please explain to me why Manning and Waller allowed Bryson to set up and trigger the disruptor that caused Manning's estate to burn and foil their plans? The scene where Bryson's learns he's been under surveillance for the past 10 years negates the whole plot! The bad guys not only know everything he's done, but everything he's planned to do. And this is just one of many inconsistencies in the book. I give it two stars because finding so many inconsistencies in a best-seller it made me feel so superior.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly bad,
By Clive Barratt "Clive" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Prometheus Deception (Mass Market Paperback)
Dear me. This was the first Ludlum book I have read and I am afraid to say it will definitely also be the last. This book would probably make a good film, in much the same way as "The Bourne Identity", however the book quickly becomes tiring as Bryson careers from one ultra violent setpiece to the next. He also seems to be both the stupidest and the luckiest man alive as time and again some unbelievably lucky occurance saves his back-side at the last minute, rather like those old black and white Saturday morning flicks when the hero was last seen plumetting over a cliff - only to find out the following Saturday that he had in fact, unseen by the camera, jumped out of the doomed car at the last minute. Another BIG problem with this book is Ludlum's insistence on having two characters elaborately explain things to each other (on subjects that they would already know inside out - rather like two car mechanics elaborately explaining to each other the reasons and benefits of putting oil into a car engine) just for the sake of informing the reader. This makes for pathetically unrealistic dialogue, is extremely tiring and is the mark of a very bad writer. There are several very tedious examples of this littered throughout the book and they quickly grind you down. This is simply not a good book. It may be exciting in so far as it is little more than action scene after action scene however if this is what you want then your time would be much better spent watching a "Die Hard" movie or even "The Bourne Identity". As far as a demonstration of writing skills go this book is an absolute turkey of the highest order. If you still don't believe me fair enough, but do yourself a favour and borrow this book from a public library before buying.
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