text: Investment Banker with a conscience, Ben Hartman, and special agent Anna Navaro's plot lines and bodies soon become intertwined in their quest for the secrets of Sigma, an elite cabal with roots in Nazi Germany that is bent on world domination. What starts out as reasonable and entrancing enough genre pulp becomes sheer Bond by the end, but there's no denying Ludlum has a gift for keeping the heat turned up from page to page.
  
  If you are new to espionage fiction and have even slightly literary sensibilities, run don't walk to writers like Alan Furst, Graham Greene, or even John Le Carr?. But if strong characters aren't a necessity, you are able to suspend your disbelief, and you are lusting for pure literary sugar, you probably won't be disappointed.
  
  Ludlum is a great author for those who typically spend hours in front of the television and tremble in anticipation at the release of the next Hollywood blockbuster, because he provides essentially the same experience in written form.  He is a master of the wildly oscillating plot line, but barely approaches apprentice status in any other literary area.  I found myself cringing in embarrassment for the author at many points, but to his credit I was compelled to continue turning the pages until I had reached the end.  It's like candy, you can't stop eating it but feel ill once it's gone.
  
  If you are a die hard Ludlumite I admit this is my first foray.  Please point me to a better example of his work if one exists, otherwise I'll invest my time elsewhere and catch up on Mr. Ludlum by proxy when the next "Bourne" film comes out
  