Robert Ludlum’s The Matarese Countdown (1997)

Robert Ludlum's The Matarese Countdown
Robert Ludlum is undoubtedly one of the world's best storytellers to hit paperback, and The Matarese Countdown is a highly explosive thriller involving a worldwide conspiracy by an ancient evil that has penetrated the bowels of the free world – The Matarese.

The Matarese; an ancient organization hell-bent on controlling the economies of the world, first encountered in Ludlum’s The Matarese Circle, is up to something sinisterly big – but what?

Enter our protagonist, 36 year old CIA case officer, Cameron Pryce; an agent with a valuable mind that predicted the fall of the Soviet Union within months of its collapse. However, he has to enlist the help of the legendary and elusive Beowulf Agate aka Brandon Scofield – the only man alive ever to penetrate the highly secretive Matarese circle.

Pryce and Scofield are like mirror images of each other on different timelines, Pryce the younger and Scofield the older. The characters are so much alike that it feels like Ludlum is clearing a path for Scofield’s exit, yet leaving his readers with an equally entertaining and colorful replacement.

Now, to be totally honest, this is the first Ludlum novel I have read, despite being a big fan of Matt Damon in the film adaptation of the Jason Bourne trilogy, the former Marine turned author sure knows how to spin a yarn.

First published by HarperCollins in 1997, this best seller had me glued to all the 569 pages from the get go. The author’s narrative was very vivid which projected sharp mental images with a smooth transition between each paragraph. However, I did find Ludlum’s description of the Matarese leader’s martial arts prowess a bit bland. Of course, this could just be because of my background in karate.

Ideally, I’d like to read a copy of The Matarese Circle to get a better grasp of the evil organization and the elusive Beowulf Agate. But in the meantime, The Matarese Countdown is a captivating novel with an intricate plot involving a web of international corruption and murder in the pinnacles of global economics.

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