The Holcroft Covenant Paperback – 1 July 2014

This is early Ludlum. The obsession with the fourth reich kept him going until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The book is much the same. The architect can remove a trap by looking at windows. It does set up his later stuff.

A very gripping story and fast paced but too many group names giving it all a somewhat complicated and often very confusing twist - and more than my aged brain could cope with until it all unwound towards the end - I actually really enjoyed the read

Twenty five years after reading this book for the 1st time I thought it was time to revisit it, I was not disappointed. A superb plot,fast moving,difficult to put down. Surely it is time to put Bourne to bed and bring this to the big screen......Ludlum....Legend....Buy It!!!!!!!!

You know how it is: in your early thirties you’re called halfway round the world for a top secret meeting with a mysterious Swiss banker who informs you that your Nazi father embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars from the Third Reich and named you as the responsible party for ensuring its distribution as a reparation to those who were harmed by their atrocities. Frankly, we’ve all been through something similar, and it’s no surprise to any of us when a sinister organisation starts killing people by way of claiming the money for its own doubtless nefarious ends.Robert Ludlum’s tenth novel in 7 years (!) was probably the last point at which he was refining the ingredients which would go on to typify his reputation in the field – after this came The Matarese Circle, The Bourne Identity, The Parsifal Mosaic, The Aquitaine Progression, The Bourne Supremacy, The Icarus Agenda and The Bourne Ultimatum, which represents pretty much as rich a vein of mellifluous skulduggery as has ever been accomplished in fiction. A tractable protagonist finds both himself and seemingly everyone he knows pursued at all corners while agencies and untrustworthy types plot and scheme around him, making his destruction before he derails their terrible plot their sole aim... I’m not being derisive: Ludlum is incontestably the king of this type of panoramic conspiracy, and when he turned his hand to such tortuous schemes he virtually always found a way to make it fresh.Where The Holcroft Covenant falls down, however, is its excess of clarity – from information given to the reader but not Holcroft himself, it’s fairly easy to work out what’s going on quite early on – and the subsequently overlong way things play out. Some judicious editing would help reduce this, and make the deliberately bewildering switchback of cross and counter-cross a little more opaque and playful. I found my interest flagging in the frenzied closing stages, and the final development is possibly a step too unlikely to accept when not fully on board. It’s true that no-one comes close to Ludlum at his best, however, and so even when not in full flight he still outshines anyone you’d care to mention. Worth reading both for the experience of a talent about to truly bloom and as an aperitif for the mastery that follows, but be very aware that he gets so, so much better than this...

We have this and many more from the author Ludlum in paperback, but now we have Audilbe we decided to add this one as well.

convenants are always thre to be broken but the action was electrifying

Excellent! With some lessons for today’s world...

very good

The 4th Reich. Great plot about its reawakening. Very plausible. As always a late night page turner. My 2nd time reading it and it kept me engaged the whole time. Hard to put down.

It was written quite some time back but I actually read for the second time!! So you can guess how much I like it!! A true suspense thriller !!

Story just keeps moving forward. Definitely a page turner. Wondering what comes next for Holcroft. What is next for him.

I enjoyed the book and the story was well crafted. It keeps your attention and moves quickly. At times, however, Noel's character was just a little beyond belief.

An great entertainer once said, "leave them wanting more!"A brilliant story, a shame it had to end, but that's life.