"The Matarese Circle" by Robert Ludlum

This is a fast-paced spy thriller with a wild plot full of many twists and turns. As is typical of Ludlum, everything seems to happen while characters are frantically running from one thing to another, or fighting, or killing or trying to avoid being killed. Violence and intensity are the order of the day.

Interestingly, it has been suggested that Ludlum loosely based "The Matarese Circle" on a real organization, "The Trilateral Commission." I'm not sure if that's true or not, though.

Two agents, one Russian, one American, are the lead characters. Scofield is American, and Taleniekov is Russian. Both men are at a point in their lives when they are close to retiring from active service. The two men know each other, and have a history that gives each reason to hold a personal vendetta against the other. And both become implicated in murders of high-level officials in their respective countries.

This forces them to work together to get at the truth behind the murders.

What ensues is a chase across Europe, and a shocking interview with an old woman who witnessed the birth of the Matarese Circle. This organization has lurked in the shadows for decades, slowly working its schemes. It is bent on creating worldwide chaos, and believes that a kind of anarchy would be better than current political structures. But it might be a kind of revenge, since the Matarese Circle is the child of someone who lost a fortune and blames the world as it exists for his downfall.

Scofield and Taleniekov have to work against the clock, as both of their governments are after them. This creates a lot of tension on all sides - tension between the two, tension because their own people are after them, and tension over getting at the truth before it's too late.

One thing Ludlum does in this novel that is intriguing is show how stories that appear in the news could have bigger implications. Like when several people who were in on the conspiracy are killed, it's explained in the press as an unfortunate accident, but Scofield knows the truth.

Ludlum keeps things interesting throughout - my edition is over five hundred pages long, none of it dull. Now, in some ways, the main plot seemed a little predictable of spy thrillers - secret organization is determined to take over the world - 0r, in this case, bring it into chaos. We've seen that before. Look at just about any James Bond story. But, Ludlum is good at his genre, he creates so much conflict and tension among the characters, that the story feels especially intense, even for a spy thriller. And there are a lot of nice little details along the way, about locations, and people, that give the descriptions a good sense of authenticity and make the reader see the characters' viewpoints.

Also, there is a plot twist I found interesting. I'd rather not give it away, and it is something that's been used in other novels, sometimes in the mystery genre. But it was still a nice twist, near the end.

One thing that writers in this genre have to be careful of, is making sure that the characters don't appear to solve problems too fast, and get to the final conclusions too easily. But Ludlum never falls into that trap. Actually, much of this novel shows the characters going through the painstaking, step-by-step process of tracking down the clues and figuring out the mystery. That approach is one of the reasons the novel easily fills over five hundred pages.

I tend to find Ludlum very consistent. He developed a style that he was good at, that his readers liked, and he closely stuck with it. But, each novel still has new ideas, and new characters and plot points that make it very unique. So if you've enjoyed any of Ludlum's other works, you'll probably like this, too.