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The Cassandra Compact (Covert One Novel)
 
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The Cassandra Compact (Covert One Novel) (Paperback)

by Robert Ludlum (Author), Philip Shelby (Compiler)
2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Frequently Bought Together

The Cassandra Compact (Covert One Novel) + The Hades Factor + Robert Ludlum's The Paris Option: A Covert-One Novel
Price For All Three: £17.07

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Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Orion; New Ed edition (1 Dec 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0752858661
  • ISBN-13: 978-0752858661
  • Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 89,776 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #23 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > L > Ludlum, Robert

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Robert Ludlum's The Cassandra Compact, Covert-One, the president's personal, super-secret agency formed after some recent virus-driven chaos (The Hades Factor, co-written with Gayle Lynds), is staffed by an unknown number of international covert operatives, including Dr Jon Smith, late of the USAMRIID. And a good thing, too, because someone's helped themselves to Russia's share of the world's last two stores of the smallpox virus, an eradicated yet hideously deadly bug with no ready vaccine.

That the pox was nabbed and who nabbed it is clear enough early on. Why such a seemingly large and disparate cadre of global citizens (keeping the players straight puts one in mind of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine) chose to pinch the bug and for what end are the novel's driving questions. Freelance Serbian uber-nasty, Ivan Beria, is among the apparent perpetrators as are Dylan Reed and Adam Treloar of NASA, Tony Price, the head of the super-secret NSA and a bunch of Russians. The good-guys roster claims Smith, Covert-One's head Nathaniel Klein, Briton and ex-SAS man Peter Howell, Smith's deceased girlfriend's sister and CIA operative Randi Russell, the girlfriend's best friend, backup shuttle astronaut Megan Olson and another bunch of Russians. Suffice it to say that Smith and company trot the globe, cat-and-mousing after the pox and in so doing careen through a classically speedy and Ludlumesque (if coincidence dependent) plot leaving large numbers of efficiently dispatched corpses in their wake. --Michael Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
"What they're going to do, I would never have believed it. It's insanity!" They were the last words spoken by Yuri Danko, an officer in the medical division of Russia's security service, before his body was ripped apart by a spray of assassin's bullets. Now Covert-One's Jon Smith has Danko's classified papers, and he's unearthed a terrifying global conspiracy. A Serb terrorist has been despatched from Russia to smuggle hazardous vials of a deadly bacteria into the United States. His mission: to deliver them to an unknown US government agent. Then both men are murdered, and the deadly bacteria is stolen... It's up to Lt Col Smith to find the madman who possesses it, before he holds a defenceless world hostage with the power to render the human race extinct.

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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3 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
2.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Ludlum Always Respected His Readers, 9 Nov 2002
By taking a rest - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Cassandra Compact (Covert-One) (Paperback)
When Mr. Ludlum passed away recently the readers of his work lost one of the true originals in a genre that has becoming overcrowded with imitators. Not all of his books were as special as a given person's favorite, however he wrote with the knowledge that made his stories credible. This second book in, "The Covert One Series", is as bad as and possibly worse than the initial volume in the series. The obituary that I read stated he was working on three additional books before he died that will be published. I hope someone has the integrity to publish the work if it was his or be candid with where the book was when he stopped working upon it. At the very least these Covert One amalgams that clearly had a minimal amount of his involvement should not be the final works to carry his name. That would be a travesty of this man's real books, and to his memory.

Between the last of this series and this mess, we had, "The Prometheus Deception", a few minutes with that book proves the difference between a Robert Ludlum Book, and Robert Ludlum's Covert Collaboration. This book is bad from the cover. The word, "Cassandra", has a very specific meaning and it has absolutely nothing to do with this book's contents. In the first few dozen pages you will read the most ridiculous writing. A man is blown back by a shockwave and is unconscious; upon waking he not only can identify the explosive used but how it was detonated. His explanation is absurd, the material is absurd as it is the last thing that would have been used, and the reasons are much clearer than the preposterous statements.

How about the fact that NASA has learned to defy one of the basic laws of nature? Great, explain it to me, don't just toss it in a sentence and expect me to take your word for Science Fiction that would challenge Star Wars. But this continues throughout the book, "military grade bullets", what was military about them? How do you hide behind a Grand Piano so that "expert assassins" shred the piano with these magic bullets and miss you?

Probably the most offensive example of lazy writing, but by no means the only example was as follows. If you wish to demonize someone it's bad enough to drag up the most overused group of the 20th Century and tie the person/company to them. When you then state an absolute falsehood about a fact that anyone who has read about the Historical Period being used would identify as ridiculous, the writer goes beyond lazy, to something just above mentally inert.

There are facts stated at the beginning that change by a factor of 600% later in the book, and other events that are too implausible to mention here.

Mr. Ludlum was one of the best. Having read these Covert One pieces of trash, I am convinced he had little to do with them. Compare any 10 pages from one of his books to one of these 2 alleged collaborations and decide for yourself. My library of this man's work has come to an end as soon as I toss these two in the recycle bin.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars The Cassandra Compact, 27 Jun 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Cassandra Compact (Covert-One) (Paperback)
The story line is strong, typical of Ludlum set up.A virus has to be stopped from getting out of Russia. However the book lacks the "Ludlum" professional characters to carry it through, thereby undermining the seriousness of the situation.

Smith goes to Russia and back as if he is on holiday. Nobody really appears in any sense of danger.

Perhaps the first Ludlum novel with no tension! with no suprises!

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A maze of deceipt that makes you question if its fiction., 6 Dec 2001
By marekwatts@hotmail.com (London, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Robert Ludlum's the Cassandra Compact (A covert-one novel) (Paperback)
A greatly thought out concept and storyline that keeps you hanging on right until the very last minute, without all the unnecessary over expressiveness of other authors within this field.
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