The Prometheus Deception (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Ludlum returns to his favourite theme of world domination by a secret society.

However this is not the greatest he has ever written. The book follows his usual formulae of man (in this case Nicholas Bryson) of dodgy government agency background discovering a secret, shadowy society bent on running the world. Helped on the way by a female side kick - who usually turns out to be not all she first seems.

The premise usually works for Ludlum - however this book is full of glaring contradictions. How can a woman who is overcome by a weedy guy take on a contract killer and win? How come when a garage is full of locked vehicles Nicholas breaks in only to find the keys in the ignition? (the explanation is that separating the vehicles from their keys would be a logistical nightmare but they are locked....). Also at one point the driver of a vehicle changes from the female sidekick to Bryson in the middle of a paragraph!

Maybe it's just me being picky but I find all these inconsistancies hard to take - I have to keep checking back to make sure I haven't missed anything!

An enjoyable read if you can see past all the glaring mistakes. I couldn't hence only three stars.

The plot of the Prometheus Deception reminded me of the idea behind the Bourne Trilogy. The similarities between Nick Bryson, who has to discover the truth about his past life, and Jason Bourne, who has to reconstruct his past following amnesia, are indeed striking. Both protagonists are lone fighters entangled in a web of conspiracies and their adversaries seem at first glance far more powerful. These motifs permeate most of Ludlum's plots and the Prometheus Deception is no exception. Ludlum once again manages to weave a lot of accurately researched historical and technical information into the story. Another ingredient, which makes his books enjoyable reads.

The basic plot of the story can be summarised in a few sentences: Nick Bryson used to work for the Directorate, a secret intelligence organisation, which is so well hidden, that most people do not know it even exists. Following his retirement, he works as a university lecturer until he is recruited by the CIA, who make him believe that the Directorate was a false - flag agency set up by KGB conspirators, who attempted to undermine the operations of the Western intelligence services. As an ex-operative, Nick is recruited to help destroy the Directorate. From then onwards the story twists and turns, and in the end the reader and Nick Bryson can no longer be sure who is friend, and who is foe.

For the first four hundred pages, I was not able to put this book down. Just like Nick Bryson the reader becomes obsessed with discovering the truth. Ludlum successfully manages to make you feel that nothing in the whole plot is what it seems to be, and that ultimately every protagonist is in some way connected to the Prometheans.

At the expense of the suspense created in the first part of the book, I felt that Ludlum lost himself in too many technical details in the last part of the book. The combat scenes are far too elaborately described and thereby distract from the plot. The overall denoument of the story is somewhat unsatisfactory and hurried

Fantastic story, truely awesome. I have never read a novel that is so engrossing. Twist after twist after twist, double-cross after double-cross, it almost leaves your head spinning when you put it down! If you like reading pulp fiction then don't get this book. But if you like totally gripping and enthralling spy thrillers, then for God's sake go and buy it because they don't get any better than this!