Robert Ludlum's the Lazarus Vendetta: A Covert-One Novel

What I found great about this book was the fact that Ludlum captured every characters perspective on the current situation. The action was non-stop, the twists were great, and the ending was fantastic. I recommend this book fully.

The lead villain in the Lazarus Vendetta is a mad scientist aptly named Lazarus leading a small army of equally mad mercenaries and equally mad subordinate scientists on a path to world domination and mass international genocide. On the other side of the fence, attempting to thwart this dastardly plan, is an American specials ops doctor named Jon Smith and a sly old British secret service agent named Peter Howell who soon discover that rogue FBI and CIA teams are also up to no good. Smith and Howell dash from one side of the globe to the other, battling wave after wave of enemy forces and all sorts of nasty weapons including bioengineered invisible nanobots which turn humans into gobs of slime, as they race against the clock to save the world. If the star roles were switched in this story and the American Jon Smith became British MI6 Peter Howell this could easily be a 007 novel. Yes the villains are that hokey. Still, the Lazarus Vendetta is a fast-paced ride, descriptive, topical, and author Patrick Larkin has definitely proved himself gifted with the pen.

Like all the other books in this series, good adventure without a let up. You get right into the action and it doesn't stop.

So far I am pleased with the book. If you are Ludlum fan, you'll enjoy it.

Patrick Larkin has written an excellent and exciting addition to the Covert-One series created by Robert Ludlum shortly before his death. The central protagonist is Army Lt. Colonel Jon Smith M.D., who was first introduced to readers in THE HADES FACTOR, the very fast paced initial book in the series. The other characters familiar to readers of previous books in the series include CIA agent Randi Russell and the British ex-MI6 operative Peter Howells, who team with Smith as he attempts to penetrate the secrecy surrounding the goals and leadership of an environmental group known as The Lazarus Movement. Fred Klein remains Smith's boss as the head of the ultra clandestine Covert-One operation that reports directly to President Sam Castilla; its very existence continues to be kept secret from not only Randi and Peter but even from the CIA and FBI as well as Congress. This book follows the classic Ludlum style, a thriller combining fast paced action, a convoluted plot and a few individuals fighting seemingly far more powerful shadowy forces; all these elements linked by a conspiracy that apparently involves high level government operatives. In brief, the original focus of The Lazarus Movement on peaceful reform of environmental policies on a worldwide basis has gradually been replaced by an increasingly strident emphasis on anti-technology protests and an activist agenda of protests and demonstrations in support of its demands for the adoption of its radical eco-conscious agenda. Despite the intense efforts of governmental intelligence agencies around the world, they have been unable to discover either the location of the organization's headquarters or the identity of its leader, a shadowy figure known only as Lazarus. Suddenly, violence strikes a remote Lazarus agriculture experiment in rural Africa; this event seems to legitimize the organization's claims of persecution at the hands of the governments who oppose its anti-development agenda and further energizes the activists who increasingly dominate the Movement. A major demonstration is planned to protest the scientific research being conducted at the Teller Institute for Advanced Technology in Sante Fe, New Mexico. This research involves some of the most highly classified and leading edge projects in the field of nanotechnology, the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics; projects whose potential to create machines so small that they could penetrate human cells and so powerful that they could be programmed to change structures at the subatomic level had allowed conspiracy theorists to sow fear with regard to both their misuse and their ability to eventually escape the control of the scientists who had created them. As the protesters assemble, apparently well orchestrated violence ensues which results in the deaths of many of the protesters, supposedly as the result of the inadvertent release of fatal nanophages under development at the Institute. This story is an action filled thril