New York, July 2006. The dark, furious sky swelled overhead. Beneath its foreboding gloom, a man walked anxiously, clutching to his chest a crisp manila envelope. He crossed the sidewalk, and entered the five-storey brownstone. It was freezing, and the icy air caused his fingers to throb. He lurched nervously across the deserted lobby to the elevator, and, emerging three floors later from the dimly lit metal box, entered the party in full swing across the hall.
He had committed the description of the agent to memory and looked around discreetly, avoiding any direct eye contact, before making his move. Picking up a cocktail from a silver tray on a low, smoked-glass coffee table, he could just make out the faces of the guests through the haze of paranoia that had descended like a thick fog.
He caught sight of a broad-shouldered man in the corner. He moved towards him. It was too late to abort his mission. There could be no turning back now. "Have you got the manuscript?" the second man asked, eyebrows knitting tightly together in concentration. He nodded, handing over the manila envelope. "I've written it exactly as you requested." The agent tore open the flap and peered at the first page: it was headed with the words "The Arctic Event"... and there, printed beneath, was a single name: "Robert Ludlum".
"Perfect," said the agent, his brows visibly loosening. All the pieces of the plan were falling into place. Ludlum had been dead for five years, but the pact between the two men would protect the power and potency of his legacy. It must – for tens of millions of dollars were at stake...
Mystery. Conspiracy. Identity. If a book were to tell the story of Robert Ludlum, these would be its themes. A successful actor and theatre producer who turned his hand to popular fiction, Ludlum practically cornered the market in dense, paranoid, meticulously researched thrillers for 30 years. By the time of his death in 2001, he had sold 210 million books – a figure only exceeded by JK Rowling. This summer, the hottest property at the cinema box office is likely to be The Bourne Ultimatum, the third instalment of a $500m-grossing movie franchise based on Ludlum's best-known character, directed by United 93's Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon as an amnesiac spy.
Yet for all the sales figures and superlatives, it is somehow fitting that a novelist who specialised in complex conspiracy theories and international espionage should have left behind a conundrum to baffle even Bourne himself. In the years since his death, 12 new works bearing his name have hit the bookshelves and beach-towels of the world. None was penned by Ludlum himself – and at least three have not been credited to any other writer. These include The Bancroft Strategy, published last year, which sold 102,000 copies in hardback alone. Like Bourne, whose life after death underscores the basis of the film trilogy, so too has his creator found a new identity in his afterlife..........
