Ludlum, Robert 1927–2001

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Ludlum, Robert 1927–2001

(Jonathan Ryder, Michael Shepherd)

PERSONAL: Born May 25, 1927, in New York, NY; died of a heart attack, March 12, 2001, in Naples, FL; son of George Hartford (a businessman) and Margaret (Wadsworth) Ludlum; married Mary Ryducha (an actress), March 31, 1951 (died, 1996); married second wife, Karen, 1997; children (first marriage): Michael, Jonathan, Glynis. Education: Wesleyan University, B.A., 1951. Politics: Independent.

CAREER: Writer, 1971–2001. Actor on Broadway and on television, 1952–60; North Jersey Playhouse, Fort Lee, NJ, producer, 1957–60; producer in New York, NY, 1960–69; Playhouse-on-the-Mall, Paramus, NJ, producer, 1960–70. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1944–46.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Authors League of America, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Screen Actors Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS: New England Professor of Drama Award, 1951; awards and grants from American National Theatre and Academy, 1959, and from Actors' Equity Association and William C. Whitney Foundation, 1960; Scroll of Achievement, American National Theatre and Academy, 1960.

WRITINGS:

The Scarlatti Inheritance, World Publishing (New York, NY), 1971, reprinted, Armchair Detective Library (New York, NY), 1990.

The Osterman Weekend, World Publishing (New York, NY), 1972, reprinted, Armchair Detective Library (New York, NY), 1991.

The Matlock Paper, Dial (New York, NY), 1973.

(Under pseudonym Jonathan Ryder) Trevayne, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1973.

(Under pseudonym Jonathan Ryder) The Cry of the Halidon, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1974.

The Rhinemann Exchange, Dial (New York, NY), 1974.

(Under pseudonym Michael Shepherd) The Road to Gandolfo, Dial (New York, NY), 1975, reprinted under name Robert Ludlum, Bantam (New York, NY), 1982.

The Gemini Contenders, Dial (New York, NY), 1976.

The Chancellor Manuscript, Dial (New York, NY), 1977.

The Holcroft Covenant, Richard Marek, 1978.

The Matarese Circle, Richard Marek, 1979.

The Bourne Identity, Richard Marek, 1980.

The Parsifal Mosaic, Random House (New York, NY), 1982.

The Aquitaine Progression, Random House (New York, NY), 1984.

The Bourne Supremacy, Random House (New York, NY), 1986.

The Icarus Agenda, Random House (New York, NY), 1988.

The Bourne Ultimatum, Random House (New York, NY), 1990.

The Road to Omaha, Random House (New York, NY), 1992.

The Scorpio Illusion, Bantam (New York, NY), 1993.

Three Complete Novels: The Ludlum Triad, Wings Books, 1994.

The Apocalypse Watch, Bantam (New York, NY), 1995.

The Matarese Countdown, Bantam (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Gayle Lynds) Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor (first novel in "Covert-One" series), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

The Prometheus Deception, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Philip Shelby) Robert Ludlum's The Cassandra Compact (second novel in "Covert-One" series), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The Sigma Protocol, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The Janson Directive, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Gayle Lynds) Robert Ludlum's The Paris Option (third novel in "Covert-One" series), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

The Tristan Betrayal, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Gayle Lynds) Robert Ludlum's The Altman Code (fourth novel in the "Covert-One" series), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2003.

ADAPTATIONS: The Rhinemann Exchange was adapted as a television miniseries by NBC, 1977; The Osterman Weekend was filmed by EMI, 1980; The Holcroft Covenant, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Michael Caine, was filmed in 1985; The Bourne Supremacy, read by Michael Prichard, was released on cassette tape by Books on Tape, 1986; an abridged version of The Bourne Identity, read by Darren McGavin, was released on cassette tape by Bantam, 1987, and a television film of this title, written by Carol Sobieski, directed by Roger Young, and starring Richard Chamberlain, was broadcast in 1988; The Icarus Agenda, read by Prichard, was released on cassette by Books on Tape, 1988; The Bourne Ultimatum, read by Prichard, was released on cassette by Books on Tape, 1990; The Road to Omaha, read by Joseph Campanella, was released by Random House, 1992; The Scarlatti Inheritance was filmed by Universal Pictures; a feature film of The Bourne Identity, with a screenplay by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, directed by Doug Liman, and starring Matt Damon, was released by Universal Pictures in 2002; The Bourne Supremacy, with screenplay by Gilroy and Brian Helgeland, directed by Paul Greengrass, and starring Damon, was released by Universal in 2004. Eric Van Lustbader has authored another book featuring the Bourne character, The Bourne Legacy, published by St. Martin's Press in 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Suspense novelist Robert Ludlum "has his share of unkind critics who complain of implausible plots, leaden prose, and, as a caustic reviewer once sneered, an absence of 'redeeming literary values to balance the vulgar sensationalism,'" Susan Baxter and Mark Nichols noted in Maclean's. "But harsh critical words have not prevented Robert Ludlum … from becoming one of the most widely read and wealthiest authors in the world." In fact, with sales of his books averaging 5.5 million copies each, Ludlum was "one of the most popular … authors [writing] in the English language," Baxter and Nichols concluded.

Authorship came as a second career for Ludlum. Having grown up in a well-to-do family in the suburbs of New York City, he left home as a teenager to pursue an acting career, then served in the Marines during World War II before going to college to study fine arts. He worked as an actor doing theater, television films, and commercial voice-overs and found success as a producer before writing his first published novel at age forty-two—he had written one novel while in his teens, but the manuscript disappeared one night when he was carousing in San Francisco. "Ludlum's acting career accustomed him to rude reviews, and he often said that his theatrical training helped him to create the complicated plots which marked his writing," observed an obituary writer in Times of London. His most notable theatrical production, Bill Manhoff's The Owl and the Pussycat, featured then-unknown actor Alan Alda, who later gained fame for his role in the television series, MASH. The play was performed at Playhouse-on-the-Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, the country's first theater in a shopping center, which Ludlum opened in 1960. After serving as producer at the Playhouse for ten years, Ludlum found himself bored and frustrated with the pressures of theater work. Finally, he gave in to his wife's admonition to try his hand at writing.

The Scarlatti Inheritance, Ludlum's first novel, was written around an old story idea and outline, drafted years earlier and finally fleshed out when he left the theater. Based on Ludlum's curiosity at the wealth of one group of Germans during that country's economic collapse and skyrocketing inflation following World War I, The Scarlatti Inheritance follows several financiers, including some Americans, who fund Hitler's Third Reich. The book set the pattern for Ludlum's career: the story of espionage and corruption became a best-seller. Criticism of The Scarlatti Inheritance also foreshadowed that of future works. In Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1982, Patricia L. Skarda described the novel as having a "somewhat erratic pace and occasionally melodramatic characterizations" but being nonetheless "a thrilling, compelling tale"—pronouncements typical of each of Ludlum's novels.

In his next work, The Osterman Weekend, a television reporter is convinced by the CIA that his friends are involved in a conspiracy to control the world economy and agrees to gather evidence against them, but finds himself in over his head when his wife and children are threatened. Though several reviewers considered the book's ending disappointing, William B. Hill, writing in Best Sellers, noted, "If the ending is a bit weak, it is chiefly because it lets the rider down off a very high horse." Skarda pointed out that the story "exposes the inadequacies of American intelligence operations and our deepest fears that our friends cannot be trusted." Government agents again use a civilian as an investigator in a situation beyond his expertise in The Matlock Paper. Professor Matlock is pushed "into an untenable and dangerous situation" while snooping around campus for information on a group of crime bosses, Kelly J. Fitzpatrick related in Best Sellers. "The climax is effective," Fitzpatrick wrote, "and leaves the reader wondering, 'Can it be so?'" Newgate Callendar remarked in New York Times Book Review, "The basic situation is unreal—indeed, it's unbelievable—but a good writer can make the reader suspend his disbelief, and Ludlum is a good writer."

Trevayne and The Cry of the Halidon, both written under the pseudonym Jonathan Ryder, feature protagonists who discover they were hired not for their skills, but in hopes that they would be unable to uncover the truth about their employers. Andrew Trevayne, appointed to investigate spending by the U.S. Defense Department, uncovers a company so powerful that even the president of the United States is controlled by it. "There is no doubt that big business exerts an inordinate amount of pressure," Callendar observer in a New York Times Book Review. "But how much pressure? Who is really running the country?" Reviewing The Cry of the Halidon, in which a young geologist is sent to Jamaica to conduct an industrial survey and winds up in the crossfire of British Intelligence, the corporation that hired him, and various underground factions, Callendar called Ludlum's writing style "rather crude and obvious," and commented that Ludlum "is not very good at suggesting real characters, and his hero is a cutout composite of a number of sources." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found that, early on in The Cry of the Halidon, "cleverness ceases to look like a virtue and becomes an irritant. If the writing were as rich or subtle as the plot is involved the reader might more happily stay the course …, but the writing is in fact rather bare."

Ludlum's final pseudonymous offering—this time writing as Michael Shepherd—was The Road to Gandolfo, "a strange, lurching amalgam of thriller and fantasy," in the opinion of Library Journal contributor Henri C. Veit. Involving the pope, the Mafia, and the U.S. Army, the book is intended to be funny, but falls short, Veit continued. A Publishers Weekly reviewer similarly noted that the book "comes crammed with zaniness and playful characters, but, unhappily, neither asset produces comedy or the black humor indictment of the military mind the author intended."

The Rhinemann Exchange contains "one extremely ingenious plot gimmick," according to New York Times Book Review's Callendar, in which the United States and Germany arrange a trade—industrial diamonds for Germany, a weapons guidance system for the United States. Despite the author's "commonplace and vulgar style apparently much relished by his vast audience," Veit predicted in a Library Journal piece that the book would be a success. In a critique of the audio version of The Rhinemann Exchange, a Publishers Weekly contributor believed Ludlum fans "will find exactly what they're looking for—in a format already quite familiar." A secret with devastating consequences, described by Irma Pascal Heldman in New York Times Book Review as "absolutely within the realms of authenticity and fascinating to contemplate," is the key to The Gemini Contenders. Twin brothers, compelled by their father's deathbed wish to find a hidden vault containing a volatile document, unleash the secret on the world. Despite criticizing the plot, characters, and period detail of The Gemini Contenders, reviewer T.J. Binyon commented in Times Literary Supplement that Ludlum "has the ability to tell a story in such a way as to keep even the fastidious reader unwillingly absorbed."

In The Chancellor Manuscript, Ludlum returned to remaking history as he had in The Scarlatti Inheritance. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's death is found to be an assassination, not the result of natural causes as was previously believed. The murder was carried out to prevent Hoover from releasing his secret files, which, Christian Science Monitor's Barbara Phillips noted, "contain enough damaging information to ruin the lives of every man, woman and child in the nation." A group of prominent citizens join forces to retrieve the files but find half have already been stolen. An unsuspecting decoy is deployed, as in many other Ludlum stories, to lead the group to the thieves. The message of The Chancellor Manuscript is familiar to Ludlum fans, as the book "seems to justify our worst nightmares of what really goes on in the so-called Intelligence Community in Washington," Richard Freedman remarked in New York Times Book Review.

The Bourne Identity, which introduces a trilogy of books, follows Jason Bourne, a spy who awakens in a doctor's office with amnesia; the story is played out as a remarkable number of killers and organizations attempt to finish Bourne off before he realizes his true identity. "Some of Mr. Ludlum's previous novels were so convoluted they should have been packaged with bags of bread crumbs to help readers keep track of the plot lines," Peter Andrews mused in New York Times Book Review. "But The Bourne Identity is a Ludlum story at its most severely plotted, and for me its most effective." The second volume, The Bourne Supremacy, forces Bourne to face his past when his wife is kidnapped. The final story in the "Bourne" trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum, finds Bourne drawn into one last battle with his arch-enemy, the Jackal. Los Angeles Times Book Review's Don G. Campbell praised the third "Bourne" book as an example of "how it should be done," concluding that "in the pulse-tingling style that began so many years ago with The Scarlatti Inheritance, we are caught up irretrievably." After Ludlum's death, Eric Van Lustbader added to the Bourne series with The Bourne Legacy, published by St. Martin's Press in 2004.

A woman comes back from the dead and a spy in the White House threatens humanity's continued existence in The Parsifal Mosaic. "Certainly, millions of entranced readers tap their feet in time to his fiction, and I'm positive this new adventure will send his legions of fans dancing out into the streets," Evan Hunter remarked in New York Times Book Review. "Me? I must be tone-deaf." A world takeover is again imminent in The Aquitaine Progression, this time at the hands of five military figures. "Ludlum's hero, Joel Converse, learns of a plot by generals in the United States, Germany, France, Israel and South Africa to spawn violent demonstrations. Once the violence bursts out of hand, the generals plan to step in and take over," Charles P. Wallace wrote in Los Angeles Times Book Review. The Icarus Agenda features a similar plot. This time, five wealthy, powerful figures arrange the election of the next United States president. "There is a sufficient amount of energy and suspense present in The Icarus Agenda to remind the reader why Mr. Ludlum's novels are best sellers," Julie Johnson commented in New York Times Book Review. "Ludlum is light-years beyond his literary competition in piling plot twist upon plot twist," Peter L. Robertson observed in Chicago Tribune Books, "until the mesmerized reader is held captive, willing to accept any wayward, if occasionally implausible, plotting device."

In The Road to Omaha, Ludlum departs from the seriousness of his espionage thrillers with a follow-up to The Road to Gandolfo that continues that novel's farcical tone. The Hawk and Sam, Ludlum's heroes in Gandolfo, return to fight the government for a plot of land legally belonging to an Indian tribe. In a review of the audio version of The Road to Omaha, a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted, "Hardcore Ludlum fans may be taken aback at first, but they stand to be won over in the listening."

The Scorpio Illusion returned to more familiar Ludlum territory: terrorism, international intrigue, mayhem, and death. In this novel, Amaya Bajaratt, a beautiful Basque terrorist, ignites a plot to assassinate the leaders of Israel, England, France, and the United States. Supported in her plot by a secret society of assassins known as the Scorpios, Bajaratt ventures to the United States to carry out the prize murder—the assassination of the U.S. president. The killer runs into resistance in the form of Tye Hawthorne, a former Naval intelligence officer, who is the only person capable of stopping the scheme. The Apocalypse Watch, Ludlum's next novel, covers similar serious territory, as a well-funded group of neo-Nazis attempts to create a Fourth Reich and achieve world domination. This intricately plotted novel features Harry Latham, who infiltrates the evil group only to be implanted with a memory chip of false information about prominent supporters of the group. When Harry is killed by the neo-Nazis, his brother Drew must pick up the fight against the group. Aided by the beautiful and mysterious Karin de Vries, Drew dodges assassination attempts and thwarts the neo-Nazis' ploy for world-domination.

The key elements of Ludlum's books—corruption in high places, elaborate secret plans, and unsuspecting civilians drawn into the fray—are what kept Ludlum fans waiting for his next offering. His writing, characterized by the liberal use of exclamation points, italics, sentence fragments, and rhetorical questions, was called crude by some critics, but others acknowledged that the style is popular with millions of readers and has proven difficult to duplicate, leaving Ludlum with little copycat competition. Still, reviewers often pointed to Ludlum's use of mixed metaphors and illogical statements as serious flaws in his books. Horror novelist Stephen King, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek review of The Parsifal Mosaic for Washington Post Book World, highlighted some of Ludlum's "strange, wonderful, and almost Zenlike" thoughts: "'We've got … a confluence of beneficial prerogatives.' 'What I know is still very operative.' 'I'll get you your cover. But not two men. I think a couple would be better.'"

Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor, written with Gayle Lynds, is the first novel in Ludlum's "Covert-One" series. Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, a doctor and former espionage operative, is involved in biomedical research concerning deadly viruses. He is warned by an old friend—now an FBI agent—that his life is in danger. Within short order, his fiancé, also a virus researcher, is dead and Smith is forced underground after sidestepping several plots to kill him. The "doomsday" virus, unleashed by a shadowy enemy, kills three people in diverse locations within the United States, and Smith amasses his own secret force of experts in computer hacking and covert operations to stop those who are behind the virus and want to kill him. "The book reads fast," wrote Randy Michael Signor in Book, with "characters [who] are in service to plot, and plot [that] is in service to sales." Ronnie H. Terpening liked the book more, writing in Library Journal that The Hades Factor is "a top-notch international thriller" with "devastating double-crosses, gutwrenching twists, fast-paced action, [and] pressure that ratchets up to an explosive conclusion."

In The Prometheus Deception, evil forces once again attempt to take over the world. Stopping them is Nick Bryson, a retired spy who is shocked to discover that the top-secret agency he worked for—the Directorate—for twenty years was a front for the Russians. The CIA turns to him for help in dismantling the organization, which is planning terrorist attacks on the West in the form of anthrax outbreaks, train derailments, and airplane explosions. Bryson comes to suspect that the attacks are not the work of the Directorate, but rather another shadowy intelligence agency, the Prometheans. As Bryson narrowly escapes many hair-raising situations, he comes to doubt everything the CIA has told him as well. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly wrote that Bry-son "is a dynamo and lots of fun to watch in action," but thought Ludlum's concern that "technology will soon allow for surveillance on a scale that grossly infringes on personal privacy" gets drowned out by the nonstop action of the plot. David Pitt of Booklist commented that The Prometheus Deception "should keep even the most experienced readers guessing." But some reviewers found the book more substantial than that. Michael Lollar of the Memphis Commercial Appeal took the book's focus on privacy invasion rather seriously. "Ludlum creates a scenario in which seemingly benign mergers and acquisitions mean that a single corporation can delve into every aspect of a person's life," Lollar wrote. "Life insurance, health insurance, medical records, credit records and banking records all are merely subsidiary operations easily retrieved at corporate headquarters." Lollar concluded that by the end of the novel, readers "will be left with the chilling feeling that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

In Robert Ludlum's The Cassandra Compact, the second "Covert-One" novel, this time written with Philip Shelby, Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith returns, hot on the heels of a plot to steal the deadly smallpox virus from a decrepit Russian laboratory. In true Ludlum fashion, the conspiracy proves to be worldwide, and Smith chases the virus from Venice back across the Atlantic Ocean, and finally meets up with it in Nevada, after the space shuttle lands with several dead astronauts aboard—all victims of smallpox. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that the plot is not as complex as some of Lud-lum's previous novels, but "the cinematic chase through changing landscapes and mounting body count gives the book its rapid pace, while insider politics, tradecraft and technical wizardry lend an extra kick."

The "Covert-One" series has continued after Ludlum's death, with Lynds fleshing out his outlines in Robert Ludlum's The Paris Option and Robert Ludlum's The Altman Code. The Paris Option finds Smith on the trail of a missing French scientist and trying to avert nuclear war. A Kirkus Reviews contributor termed it "tops in the series," with Lynds's "cloth-of-velvet moods" balancing Ludlum's "multidimensional paranoid sensibility." The Altman Code deals with biological trade involving Iraq and China. Despite some unfortunate dialogue, this novel "provides plenty of action and intrigue," a Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked. When Ludlum died, he left behind outlines for many more novels, which his publisher said will be finished by others and released under Ludlum's name; these include five to ten "Covert-One" books and a few stand-alone titles. He also left one near-complete manuscript, The Sigma Protocol, which was given a few final touches and published in 2001. In this book Anna Navarro is a government agent assigned to a top-level case concerning a plot to murder the conspirators of a long-ago plan to steal a large amount of gold. Ben Hartman is an unsuspecting businessman who uncovers the truth about his billionaire parents and the death of his twin brother in a plane crash that Ben survived. It is the kind of book "in which the hero is just about to get an explanation for what's happening when the person he's talking to is silenced by an assassin's bullet," commented Chris Barsanti in Book. David Pitt of Booklist found The Sigma Protocol to contain "refreshing" differences from some of Lud-lum's work, although it is nevertheless full of the author's characteristic action and plot twists. Pitt complimented Ludlum for "developing a smoother style" in his later books, with "characters that felt real and dialogue that didn't sound so obviously contrived."

At the time of his death, Ludlum was "probably the world's most read writer," according to a journalist in Economist, with conservative estimates of 200 million copies of his books in print. He published over twenty novels in thirty years, writing at a pace of 2,000 words a day. "His apocalyptic messages were a part of the thriller tradition that dates back at least to Sherlock Holmes," Economist writer continued. Journalist Bob Woodward, writing in Washington Post Book World, summarized the media's view of Ludlum in a review of The Icarus Agenda: "Ludlum justifiably has a loyal following. Reviews of most of his previous books are critical but conclude, grudgingly, that he had another inevitable bestseller." In a review of The Bourne Identity for Washington Post Book World, Richard Harwood wrote, "Whether reviewers are universally savage or effusive seems irrelevant: the book is bound to be a best seller. The Bourne Identity … is already on both the national and Washington Post best-seller lists and the damned thing won't officially be published [for three more days]. So much for the power of the press." Despite reviewers' advice, readers voiced their approval of Ludlum in sales figures. As Baxter and Nichols noted in Maclean's, "For all his imperfections, Ludlum manages—by pumping suspense into every twist and turn in his tangled plots and by demanding sympathy for well-meaning protagonists afflicted by outrageous adversity—to keep millions of readers frantically turning his pages."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bestsellers 89, Issue 1, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1989.

Bestsellers 90, Issue 3, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1990.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 22, 1982, Volume 43, 1988.

Greenberg, Martin H., editor, The Robert Ludlum Companion, Bantam (New York, NY), 1993.

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, April 15, 1973, p. 41; April, 1972, p. 5.

Book, September, 2000, Randy Michael Signor, review of Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor, p. 75; November-December 2001, Chris Barsanti, review of The Sigma Protocol, p. 69.

Booklist, April 15, 1995, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of The Apocalypse Watch, p. 1452; August 2000, David Pitt, review of The Prometheus Deception, p. 2074; September 15, 2001, David Pitt, a review of The Sigma Protocol, p. 164.

Christian Science Monitor, March 31, 1977, Barbara Phillips, review of The Chancellor Manuscript, p. 31.

Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), October 29, 2000, Michael Lollar, "Big Brother Scenario Relevant in Light of Technology Today," p. H1.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2001, Donald Newlove, "Bob the Ghost," p. 1141; May 15, 2002, review of Robert Ludlum's The Paris Option.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune Service, February 22, 1995, Fred Tasker, "Robert Ludlum, Bestselling 'Storyteller,' Unfazed by Critics or Fame."

Library Journal, October 1, 1974, p. 2504; April 1, 1975, pp. 694-695; September 1, 2000, Ronnie H. Terpening, review of The Prometheus Deception, p. 250; October 15, 2001, Ronnie H. Terpening, review of The Sigma Protocol, p. 108.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 11, 1984, p. 3; March 23, 1986, p. 3; March 18, 1990, p. 8.

Maclean's, April 9, 1984, Susan Baxter and Mark Nichols, pp. 50-52.

New Republic, November 25, 1981, p. 38; September 20, 1982, p. 43.

New York, May 9, 1988, pp. 74-75.

New Yorker, June 20, 1988, pp. 90-92; October 2, 2000, James Surowiecki, "The Financial Page: Lessons from Ludlum," p. 62.

New York Review of Books, May 8, 1986, pp. 12-13.

New York Times, March 13, 1978, p. C19.

New York Times Book Review, January 28, 1973, p. 20; May 6, 1973, p. 41; August 4, 1974, p. 26; October 27, 1974, p. 56; March 28, 1976, p. 18; March 27, 1977, p. 8; April 8, 1979, p. 14; March 30, 1980, p. 7; March 21, 1982, p. 11; April 22, 1984, p. 14; March 9, 1986, p. 12; March 27, 1988, p. 16; June 20, 1993, p. 16.

Publishers Weekly, April 8, 1974, p. 76; February 10, 1975, p. 52; March 1, 1991, pp. 49-50; March 2, 1992; April 19, 1993, p. 48; April 17, 1995, review of The Apocalypse Watch, p. 37; May 29, 1995, p. 37; April 24, 2000, review of Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor, p. 58; August 28, 2000, a review of The Prometheus Deception, p. 50; April 2, 2001, review of Robert Ludlum's The Cassandra Compact, p. 38; May 5, 2003, review of Robert Ludlum's The Altman Code, p. 198.

Times Literary Supplement, October 1, 1976, T.J. Bin-yon, review of The Gemini Contenders, p. 1260.

Tribune Books (Chicago), February 28, 1988, Peter L. Robertson, review of The Icarus Agenda, p. 7.

Washington Post Book World, March 23, 1980, p. 3; March 7, 1982, p. 1; February 21, 1988, p. 1.