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humatariq's review against another edition
5.0
Wonderful book, sat up till 4.30am to finish it, cause I simply could not sleep without knowing how it ended, I'd have dreamed up a thousand endings along with all the prequels and sequels.
Bit confused about the last page of Epilogue. Don't know how they got out of the mess, since everybody concerned, including Varak, Ramirez, MacAndrews, Hoover and the Inver Brass are dead!! Maybe I should read that part again....are they in China??
But then maybe that was the beauty of the novel...love the last few lines...feeling of Deja Vu :)
Bit confused about the last page of Epilogue. Don't know how they got out of the mess, since everybody concerned, including Varak, Ramirez, MacAndrews, Hoover and the Inver Brass are dead!! Maybe I should read that part again....are they in China??
But then maybe that was the beauty of the novel...love the last few lines...feeling of Deja Vu :)
applegnreads's review against another edition
2.0
I felt like I should have loved it and really, I didn't and well, it was disappointing. It should have not been so predictable.
kriscelin's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
simonrtaylor's review against another edition
5.0
The Chancellor Manuscript, author Ludlum writes a conspiracy about an author who writes a conspiracy who experiences the same conspiracy as he is. Yeah.
Based on the real-life founding director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and his well-documented abuses of power, Manuscripts suggests Hoover was assassinated in order for a well-meaning group to gain access to his vast files which he used to blackmail judges, senators, reporters and anybody else that stood in his way. Except half of those files fell into the wrong, unknown, hands.
Enter Peter Chancellor, a conspiracy novelist who is given part of the information as a book concept, hoping that he’ll inadvertently draw out the perpetrators. In next to no time, his whole world is turned upside down.
The taut writing makes this a tense page-turner. Ludlum is indiscriminate with his bloodshed, and the unscrupulous characters are seldom who they say they are. With multiple agencies working towards their own ends, it’s a myriad of deception.
With such a complex web of storylines, many of them interconnected, Ludlum skilfully balances action with exposition as Chancellor tries to piece together the information that he has. His connection-making and conclusion-drawing makes the dense plot easy to follow, though any attempt to get ahead of the game will invariably wind up proving you wrong. There’s more twists than Alton Towers, even when half its rides aren’t shut for health and safety reasons.
The Chancellor Manuscript constitutes an interesting blurring of fact and fiction twice over, through both the book and book-in-a-book, which allows a twisty-turny page-turner to follow.
Based on the real-life founding director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and his well-documented abuses of power, Manuscripts suggests Hoover was assassinated in order for a well-meaning group to gain access to his vast files which he used to blackmail judges, senators, reporters and anybody else that stood in his way. Except half of those files fell into the wrong, unknown, hands.
Enter Peter Chancellor, a conspiracy novelist who is given part of the information as a book concept, hoping that he’ll inadvertently draw out the perpetrators. In next to no time, his whole world is turned upside down.
The taut writing makes this a tense page-turner. Ludlum is indiscriminate with his bloodshed, and the unscrupulous characters are seldom who they say they are. With multiple agencies working towards their own ends, it’s a myriad of deception.
With such a complex web of storylines, many of them interconnected, Ludlum skilfully balances action with exposition as Chancellor tries to piece together the information that he has. His connection-making and conclusion-drawing makes the dense plot easy to follow, though any attempt to get ahead of the game will invariably wind up proving you wrong. There’s more twists than Alton Towers, even when half its rides aren’t shut for health and safety reasons.
The Chancellor Manuscript constitutes an interesting blurring of fact and fiction twice over, through both the book and book-in-a-book, which allows a twisty-turny page-turner to follow.
siddharthagolu's review against another edition
4.0
Truly a master of suspense. Couldn't put the book down once I started.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Another good 70s-era read from Robert Ludlum. This one loses steam a little in the end but is still one of his better efforts. I don't want to give away much of the plot, but reading this was like reading many of the conspiracy thrillers that came out around the time of Watergate when trust in the government was low.
michaelromeo's review against another edition
2.0
Ludlum has done better. I have struggled thrilling 50% and I have no desire to finish it.
komet2020's review against another edition
3.0
Having just read this book, I feel as if I've just been let off a maddening, yet thrilling merry-go-round. Ludlum has written a thriller with the premise that J. Edgar Hoover, the infamous Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), did not die a natural death in 1972, but had been murdered.
One of the principal characters is Peter Chancellor, a man in his 30s, who had failed in his defense of a Ph.D thesis into which he had devoted 2 years of his life. (It was a highly controversial thesis, which called into question various historical events which had been played out on the world stage between 1926 and 1939.) Frustrated, Chancellor makes his case to an old authority figure (Munro St. Claire) who wielded considerable influence within Chancellor's school. St. Claire advises Chancellor to take up a new career, suggesting fiction. With nothing left to lose, Chancellor embarks upon a literary career, writing over the next 4 years 2 best-selling novels whose conspiratorial themes would lead to Chancellor's life being turned inside out.
Ludlum creates here a novel that has all the hallmarks of a classic action thriller: car chases across highways, horrific deaths in plain sight of passersby, secret codes, clashing of rival groups, and secret quasi-governmental/private organizations. Chancellor cheats death many times. One of the lessons hard learned from him was the following:
"When making a contact, position was everything. Protect yourself by being able to observe all approaching vehicles; keep rapid, undetectable escape available.
"Friends were enemies, and enemies taught one strategies with which to fight them. It was part of the insanity that was all too real."
Any reader in search of a high-octane action novel mixing fact and fiction will find much in "The Chancellor Manuscript" to keep him/her engaged and breathless.
One of the principal characters is Peter Chancellor, a man in his 30s, who had failed in his defense of a Ph.D thesis into which he had devoted 2 years of his life. (It was a highly controversial thesis, which called into question various historical events which had been played out on the world stage between 1926 and 1939.) Frustrated, Chancellor makes his case to an old authority figure (Munro St. Claire) who wielded considerable influence within Chancellor's school. St. Claire advises Chancellor to take up a new career, suggesting fiction. With nothing left to lose, Chancellor embarks upon a literary career, writing over the next 4 years 2 best-selling novels whose conspiratorial themes would lead to Chancellor's life being turned inside out.
Ludlum creates here a novel that has all the hallmarks of a classic action thriller: car chases across highways, horrific deaths in plain sight of passersby, secret codes, clashing of rival groups, and secret quasi-governmental/private organizations. Chancellor cheats death many times. One of the lessons hard learned from him was the following:
"When making a contact, position was everything. Protect yourself by being able to observe all approaching vehicles; keep rapid, undetectable escape available.
"Friends were enemies, and enemies taught one strategies with which to fight them. It was part of the insanity that was all too real."
Any reader in search of a high-octane action novel mixing fact and fiction will find much in "The Chancellor Manuscript" to keep him/her engaged and breathless.
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