Same Old Ludlum

ROBERT LUDLUM NOVELS have always possessed an element of predictability. You've read one, and you've almost read them all. Throw in a worldwide semi-omnipotent conspiracy to take over the free-world, a desperate, haunted and isolated protagonist, a romantic interest, a trusty sidekick and you have all of the elements of a Ludlum thriller. Usually, the book contains a thrilling array of plot twists that leave you gasping for air. But not this time. Never has the predictability of a Ludlum novel nor the lack of conviction or joy in spinning a good tale hit the reader harder than in his most recent novel. The Aquitaine Progression.

The novel begins in typical Ludlum fashion. Joel Converse (read haunted protagonist with a conscience), a Vietnam vet turned prominent international lawyer, is called by a friend from the past. The friend tells him of a sinister plot by retired but fanatical and influential generals to take over the world. They've got money, brains and connections everywhere. And they've been shipping guns to terrorist groups all over the world, and moreover they are planning a series of assassinations and uprisings which will soon catapult the military into power. Converse is cynical, after all he's got his cozy lawyer's world and it does sound like a paranoid's fantasy, but then the friend drops a name--General George Marcus Delavane (read mad antagonist). This man Converse hates--Delavane sent him on a suicide mission in Vietnam that landed him in a Vietnamese concentration camp (read haunted past). Delavane sent thousands of kids to their useless deaths in Vietnam, and Converse would do anything to stop him from gaining power. But before the friend-source can give Converse more than a few leads, he is killed.

Well, Converse is no fool and motivated by the Delavane threat he follows one of the leads to a man who tells him all the names and methods of the generals or the Aquitaine conspiracy as they're called, and gives him a lot of money. Sources tell Converse that the best way to bring Aquitaine down is to build a legal case against them--prove they are breaking every conceivable law. He makes contact with one of the generals posing as the representative of a rich client who wants to buy into the organization. Well, the generals aren't that dumb; they figure him out; but they want to know who sent him, so they set him up as a man who has gone crazy as a result of Vietnam (delayed stress) and is running around killing people. They implicate him in the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Germany and other important politicians, hoping that his "client" will reveal himself. Okay, so now we have our hero on the run; he's isolated from the people who sent him out (the ones he knew have all been killed and the others can't reach him) and he's got to bring down this maniacal organization in a few weeks before the world explodes in a reign of terror that they've engineered. But Ludlum heroes, even though wounded, on the fun and recognized everywhere, don't roll over and play dead. Nope, they usually manage to find a woman to help and support them--Converse's ex-wife comes to the scene--and they've got plenty of money, brains and brawn to win it through.

Well Converse does, but in a singularly unconvincing, uninspired and unexciting way. Oh yeah, he has a rough time doing it--captured by an insane bunch of women who survived the Nazi reign of terror who think he's a traitor to them or running into a whole bunch of killers from Aquitaine on trains. But the rough times are just there to add space, not inventive or surprising plot twists, to the very long (647 pages) book. The problem is that we already know what the conspiracy is, and somehow, the rough times seem like parodies of better Ludlum novels.

What makes some of his other novels so convincing and wonderfully exhilarating is the way everything is a puzzle, and as the protagonist learns so does the reader. But by the first 150 pages of The Aquitaine Progression we know what the conspiracy is; we know what Converse has to do. The other 500 pages seem more an exercise in how well Ludlum can invent traps for Converse and how much we can believe in his paranoid vision of a corrupt world where anyone can be bought and everyone is being watched. The traps Ludlum invents are singularly unoriginal. At one point, Ludlum even has Converse traveling around Europe disguised as a priest.

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE Ludlum does get fired up. The scene in Bonn when Converse is charged with killing the U.S. ambassador to Germany is pretty good stuff. But for every interesting scene there are two or three with hackneyed, trite, cliched texts. From going into a whorehouse just to sleep and then bribing the prostitute (who we are told has children she takes to dance classes and school--read heart of gold) to get him an escape car, or to detailing the sexual habits of some of the generals, the "plot twists" are just unbelievable.

The dialogues and internal narrative fall flat for most of the book. It just doesn't ring true and is full of hollow platitudes and philosophical nonsense. Says one general to Converse: "Voltaire said it best in his Discours sur I' homme. Essentially he wrote that man attained his highest freedom only when he understood the parameters of his behavior." But not to be outdone in the philosophical merry-go-round, another general tells Converse: "Goethe said it perhaps better when he insisted that the romance of politics is best used to numb and quell the fears of the uninformed. In his definitive Aus meinem Leben he states clearly that all governing classes must be imbued above all with discipline."

If they aren't mouthing their political philosophy, most of the characters are engaged in stale, macho talk or puffing up with the self-important rhetoric of their tasks. "Christ you're a cold son of a bitch," says one character to Converse. "Ice, Commander," he replies:

We're dealing with a paranoid fantasy called Aquitaine, and it's controlled by proven, committed, highly intelligent and resourceful men, who it they achieve what they've set out to do will appear as the voices of strength and reason in a world gone mad. They'll control that world--our world--because all other options will pale beside their stability.

The Aquitaine Progression is an unfortunate book for Ludlum. Normally his books, though containing many similar elements, manage to captivate because of great plots and lots of action. This time most of the characters always seem to be waiting for phone calls. And the paucity of the plot leaves the book with only its theme and character--not Ludlum's strong suit. In his other novels the great plots overwhelm most of Ludlum's flaws as a novelist but in this case it underwhelms him in a big way.