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Product DescriptionNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Don’t ever begin a Ludlum novel if you have to go to work the next day.”—Chicago Sun-Times Tyrell Hawthorne was a naval intelligence officer—one of the best—until the rain-swept night in Amsterdam when his wife was murdered, an innocent victim of the games spies play. Now he’s called out of retirement for one last assignment. For Hawthorne is the only man alive who can track down the world’s most dangerous terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, and deadly—and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop. With his life and the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Bajaratt’s serpentine trail, a path of seduction, betrayal, and the looming threat of death. Racing from a millionaire recluse’s fortress to the social whirl of Palm Beach, from the Oval Office to treacherous Caribbean waters, Hawthorne will uncover a sinister network of well-placed men and women who exist to help this consummate killer—and the shattering truth behind the Scorpio Illusion. “Breakneck... readability.”—The New York Times Book Review “A high-voltage tale of drama and suspense.”—The Denver PostFrom Publishers WeeklyIf you took the bite and humor out of a Richard Condon novel, the result would be very like Ludlum's ( The Road to Omaha ) 18th book. As a child, beautiful Amaya Aquirre, witnessed the brutal murder of her Basque parents, after which she adopted the name of their killer, Bajaratt; the motto, Muerte a toda autoridad (death rules over everything); and the profession of mercenary terrorist. When her husband, a Palestinian terrorist, is killed, Bajaratt sends a signal to an underground organization named the Scorpios, to take "the heads of the four great beasts," i.e., the leaders of France, England, Israel and the United States. A mistress of disguise, this "pathological genius" takes the plum assignment of killing the U.S. president. Cutting a bloody swath through the Caribbean, Florida and Washington, she finally wangles a private meeting with him. But British and French Intelligence have hired her nemesis and one-time lover, retired American Naval Intelligence officer Tye Hawthorne, to follow her bloodsoaked trail and, inevitably, nail her. Instead of conveying tension, the book has the elements of a soap opera: lots of shouting, too much psychobabble, some grief therapy and plenty of misunderstandings. Despite the huge body count, as a thriller it falls flat. Major ad/promo; author tour.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.From AudioFileThe real beauty of this audiobook is Robert Lansing. His narrative voice is smooth and accomplished, keeping the listener on the edge of every word. J.A.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, MaineAbout the AuthorRobert Ludlum was the author of twenty-one novels, each a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. In addition to the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—he was the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and The Apocalypse Watch, among many others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March, 2001.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.1Sundown. The distressed sloop, its mainmast shattered by lightning, its sails ripped by the winds of the open sea, drifted into the small, quiet beach of a private island in the Lesser Antilles. During the past three days, before the dead calm descended, this section of the Caribbean had suffered not only a hurricane with the force of the infamous Hugo, but sixteen hours later a tropical storm whose bolts of lightning and earth-shaking thunder had set fire to a thousand palms and caused a hundred thousand residents of the island chain to look to their gods for deliverance.The Great House on this island, however, had survived both