The Janson Directive [Hardcover]

Robert Ludlum is famous for big, slick, bestselling thrillers crammed with hair-raising action and outrageous plot twists: The Janson Directive shows the maestro in good form.

Retired US agent Paul Janson, a top man in corporate security, is lured back to the old game by a personal debt of loyalty. Peter Novak, billionaire and revered peacemaker, gets captured when Muslim revolutionaries topple an island democracy in the Indian Ocean--and within days will be beheaded. Janson sets up a near-impossible "exfiltration" operation to pull Novak from his massively guarded prison, and against all the odds seems on the very brink of success when a shockingly unexpected disaster casts doubt on everything that's happened so far.

Janson needs all his wealth, competence and tradecraft to stay alive through the international shenanigans that follow, with his old US agency and another shadowy organisation both hell-bent on terminating him. He barely escapes a well-laid trap in Greece, becomes the target for world-class snipers in London, lands in the middle of a pitched battle with assault weaponry across the roofs of Amsterdam, meets further mayhem in Hungary, and ends up in the USA for a Bond-like chase sequence, incredible reversals, and a final razor-edge showdown in the United Nations building. Meanwhile there are flashbacks--vitally important, it emerges--to Janson's horrific experience 30 years before in Vietnam.

At every stage Ludlum offers ingenious escapes, cunning ploys, and increasingly sophisticated means of evasion or assassination. With luck, detective skill, and help from a gorgeous female who's a crack shot, Janson painfully reaches the heart of the mystery. Fast-moving, clever, and violent--though occasionally going a fraction over the top--The Janson Directive delivers all the goods we expect from Robert Ludlum. --David Langford

'A brilliant new thriller from a great master of that genre, and a fitting epitaph.' PUBLISHING NEWS

The SUNDAY TIMES bestselling thriller from 'the world's most read writer' [GQ]. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Peter Janson is a retired operative, now a highly sought after and extremely selective security specialist. The spy game ended up costing him everything that was most important to him and it would take a lot to lure him back into it. Unfortunately, the one person to whom Janson's personal debt is so large that he could require anything of Janson is calling in his marker. Peter Novak, the legendary Hungarian immigrant and head of the Liberty Foundation - an immensely rich man who uses his wealth to rebuild and foster the growth of democratic ideals in the most ravaged and war-torn spots around the globe - has been kidnapped and faces execution at the hands of terrorist extremists. It is up to Janson to rescue him before Novak is murdered. Janson immediately puts together a top team and manages the nearly impossible task of extricating Novak, but something goes horribly wrong - something that indicates that his operation has been compromised from the start - and only Janson himself survives. Now the major intelligence services think that Janson was responsible for Novak's death and are sending their finest operatives after him. If Janson is to survive, and to avenge Novak's murder, he must unravel the twisted truth that lies behind the legend that is and was Peter Novak. Because it appears that Novak is somehow, inexplicably, still alive and speaking publicly. And something serious is about to happen - something that threatens to change the course of history itself.

After a successful career in the theatre, Robert Ludlum launched his career as a bestselling writer with THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE in 1971, the first of twenty-two consecutive international bestsellers. Robert sadly passed away in March 2001.