The Sigma Protocol

Review "Ludlum displays once again his dazzling prose and ability to juggle an amazing number of plot lines..." --Publishers Weekly"Robert Ludlum still dominates the field in adventure-drenched thrillers"--Chicago Tribune Product Description American investment banker Ben Hartman arrives in Zurich for a ski holiday, the first time he's been back to Switzerland since his twin brother died there in a tragic accident four years earlier. But his arrival in Zurich triggers something far more sinister than his brother's fate. When Ben chances upon Jimmy Cavanaugh, an old college friend, Cavanaugh promptly pulls out a gun and tries to kill him. In a matter of minutes, several innocent bystanders are dead - as well as Cavanaugh - and Ben has barely managed to survive. Plunged into an unspeakable nightmare, Hartman suddenly finds himself on the run.Department of Justice field agent Anna Navarro is being stalked around the world by a relentless killer, managing to survive the killer's attacks only by a combination of luck, skill and her own quick wits. These attacks are somehow related to her current assignment: investigating the sudden - and seemingly unrelated - deaths of a number of very old men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them is a file in the CIA archives, over a half-century old, marked with the same puzzling code word: SIGMA. But someone or something is always seemingly one step ahead of her, the survivors are rapidly dwindling, and her own life is in ever increasing danger. Brought together by accident, Ben and Anna soon realize that their only hope of survival lies with each other. Together they race to uncover the diabolical secrets long hidden behind the code word, Sigma. Secrets that threaten everything they think they know about themselves, everything they believed true about their friends and families, and everything they were ever taught about history itself. For behind Sigma lies a vast deception that is finally coming to fruition and the fate and future of the world is in their hands. About the Author Robert Ludlum is the author of twenty-three novels published in thirty two languages and forty countries. Read by hundreds of millions world-wide, his books include The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Bourne Identity, The Chancellor Manuscript and The Prometheus Deception. From AudioFile Published posthumously, this is one of Ludlum's best. Once again we have an intricately woven conspiracy plot, which reveals a legacy of corporate double-dealing. In this tale of a financial cabal--a collaboration of the Nazis and some of the best-known names in financial circles--Ludlum disabuses us of the myth of Allied innocence during WWII. Paul Michael is more than up to the frenetic pace of the plot. He turns in a stellar performance of all the characters, especially of Ben Hartman, the hapless businessman whose na•vetŽ is challenged when he meets a former friend on the street, prepares to shake his hand, and notices a gun pointed directly at himself. So begins this international thrill ride, with twists and turns continuing to the last. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine