I remember vividly the first time I read one of Robert Ludlum's novels. I was in high school and had stumbled upon The Bourne Identity. The book oscillated between a plot moving at a frenetic pace and a series of flashbacks allowing you to slow down and get a deeper sense of who Bourne was, and why he did what he did. I came to appreciate the flashbacks almost more than the forward plot. The Bourne Identity wasn't the only one of Ludlum's novel to employ this technique. It was something that kept me coming back to him throughout my teenage years.

So it was with a sense of nostalgia and optimism that I recently started one of his later works, The Scorpio Illusion. At first, the plot is pure Ludlum. Our hero, Tyrell Hawthorne, is a former intelligence officer whose wife was murdered, a victim of "the games spies play." Now he has been called out of retirement as supposedly the only man alive who can track down a deadly terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful (of course) and deadly; worse still she has set in motion a horrifying conspiracy that no one can seem to stop. The life of the U.S. president and various world leaders hang in the balance as Hawthorne follows Amaya's trail to uncover the secret group, The Scorpios, that exists to help her.

Sounds like a great spy-thriller-beach-read, right? Unfortunately, Ludlum seems to have rushed through this book. Gone are all of the character building flashbacks and carefully revealed details that allow the reader to lose himself in the world of espionage. He fell victim to one a genre writer's worst enemies. He expected his readers to fill in the blanks themselves.

One of the joys of reading genre fiction is allowing yourself to fall into the world the author creates. Yes, it is usually a very familiar place, especially if you have read much of a particular author. But an escape into that well crafted world is exactly what the reader is looking for.

The Scorpio Illusion is simply not one of Ludlum's best. While the plot moved along at his usual breakneck speed, the characters were so utterly flat I had a hard time getting invested in any of it. Most of the dialogue sounded like it was taken from a 1970's cop show, complete with all the requisite stereotypes these shows made famous.

While I still think most of Ludlam's work sets the standard for the spy/thriller genre, I would not recommend reading this book if you are new to Ludlam. His earlier work was much better. ( )

Ludlum has this habit of creating character A who is holding a weapon on character B and must dispatch, yet goes into a lengthy monologue, giving B the opportunity to overcome A. Not only is this repeated flaw annoying, it is highly unbelievable. Constant brutal conspiracies abound and they too, become tedious and equally unbelievable. I know Ludlum has many fans, but I am not one of them ( )

I had started this book shortly before 9/11. The plot of an Arab terrorist trying to commit an act that would put the U.S. and the world in turmoil, whose mission was death to all authority, who randomly kill innocents -- not exactly escapism anymore. It is fiction and the good guys do win and there was one particularly likable character so it was OK, but I couldn't stop thinking of 9/11 and the death and devastation. ( )

A good story but with too many foreign phrases and texts. ( )

Disappointing, some of the conclusions seem jumped to. The information acquired isn't well supported by events. The book isn't one of his better works. ( )