Book: The Parsifal Mosaic by Robert Ludlum

[Krishna]

** Original post on April 7 2012 **

Robert Ludlum is a famous novelist, but like Alistair McLean, I have found his books either very good or very bad. I am not referring here to the books ghost written after his death in the name of “Robert Ludlum Inc” which I have not read and do not intend to read, but to the books written by himself. For a list of his best books, refer to the earlier review of The Scorpio Illusion in this blog earlier. But this one is heavily soporific and is a big yawn. You may want to save yourself a lot of time and agony by giving this one a miss.

The story starts interesting enough, where Michael Havelick, one of the best undercover operatives in the business, has decided to give it all up and retire, after the love of his life turns out to be a deceiver and an enemy agent, and after seeing the agonizing scene of her death as a consequence. He is shocked out of his wits when he accidentally runs into her again, alive, in a train station. Seeing him, she flees in absolute panic. He sets out to find out the truth.

From there it degenerates into pointless adventures that mean little, a long stretch of absolutely useless exchanges and inane twists. I almost put it down at several points and had to force myself to carry on.

It has typical Ludlum moments but does not hang together. It stretches credulity even further than his normal James Bond like characters do.

It ends with a very flat ‘twist’ and is utterly disappointing.

It is ironic that in this book, after the epilog, Ludlum describes himself through a quote ‘that he packs more twists and suspense in one book than any six pack of authors together’. I wish he had remembered it when he wrote this book.

Except for occasional tempo where you see glimpses of what made Ludlum famous, this one is a damp squib of a book.

I guess it deserves just a 2/10

— Krishna