Customer Reviews

The Ambler Warning

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The Ambler Warning is 600+ pages of predictable spy writing. Another reviwer mentioned similiarities to The Bourne Identity and I recognized that as well.

What saves the hero, Harrison Ambler, in this story is his uncanny ability to decode facial expressions. What starts out as an ability to detect simple deceit from suspects and other agents turns into an annoying super-power that allows him to see into people's thoughts.

None of the twists were shocking or surprising. The book was otherwise ok, but probably too long.

For a much better psychological thriller based in an island psychiatric facility, try Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island.

With each posthumously released Ludlum novel, you have to question just how much Ludlum there actually is in the book. Judging from this latest book, there's very little unpublished Ludlum left.

Whoever ghost wrote this did a poor job. It was too easy to anticipate what was going to happen. None of the unexpected twists fans have come to expect from a Ludlum novel. The writer seemed to be trying too hard to use big, uncommon, unnecessary words that kept the story crawling along. The whole main character who isn't sure who he really is bit reminded me of The Bourne Identity and the ending seemed to be taken from the movie The Bodyguard.

I'm sure there will be more pulp published under Ludlum's name. Luckily I haven't read all of his early stuff, so I can still look forward to a few more good Ludlum yarns.

This is my first encounter with Robert Ludlum and I must say that I am not impressed!

The story starts out in a real fast action leading to the escape of the main character, Ambler. At this point the book had me in it's grib but then the story starts to lag, and once again a book is killed by all the political crap the writer adds. I'm not into politics. I'm an ex-reader of the Mack Bolan Exectioner books and left those because of all the politics.

The language in this book actually was of a higher-end english. There were words I had not idea exsisted in the english language!

Anyways, I did finish this book because as I said earlier, starts with a bang then becomes boring.

- Michel