Rating: 
Summary: This is bad
Review: Reading it now, it's not clasic Ludlum, it's a bad movie screen play. It's over written and you'll get tired of the very poor lanuage and descriptions that are repetive. How many time do we need to be reminened that they are looking for a DNA molecular computer or that Jon Smith uses an encrypted cell phone? Pick something else...
Rating: 
Summary: Rich with Scorching Suspense and Terrible Possibilities
Review: Robert Ludlum has always told tales that seemed light years ahead of their time, but as history has unfolded, so have the possibilities his novels have predicted. Here is another deadly plot that haunts our future in today's war on terrorism: a warning if you will. For this reason alone, the book deserves five stars, but it is also espionage at its most intriguing and heart-pounding pace. Once started, you can't put it down!
Rating:
Summary: Thriller/ Approach Paper 7: Review
Review: Robert Ludlum's Covert One Novel the Paris Option lives up to the high standards of the Ludlum Legacy. In his third book featuring Operative Colonel Jon Smith (The Hades Effect, The Cassandra Compact); Ludlum keeps readers on their toes with many plot changing twists and turns. In this thriller of a novel the cunning Jon Smith with the help of his old friends MI6 Agent Peter Howell, Computer Genius Marty Zellerbach, and CIA Agent Randi Russell have to stop dangerous terrorist with the powerful DNA Computer before they launch a Nuclear Attack on America. Smith and his friends follow a trail of clues to finally catch up to the terrorist for a surprise ending. This book is highly suspenseful and one of my favorite Ludlum's yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing series of non fiction bio-tech novels
Review: The novel is action packed, well written and not to technical. This novel is a delight to read. The best part of the novel has to be the clarity of the vocabulary. I don't need a Phd in molecular science to enjoy this book. Ludlum times this book to the word. He has intense action and miraculous plans. He paces the book like the winding roads in Monaco lots of danger and cliff hangers. I can't say enough about this book it is a reccomended read.
Rating: 
Summary: Really Awful
Review: The only good thing about this book is that some of the dialogue is so bad that it makes you laugh out loud. The story, unfortunately, is a series of chases. Our heros get in binds and do heroic things to get out of them. Over and over. Characters with no depth or motivation. I have a habit of finishing any book I start and this was the ultimate challenge.
Rating:
Summary: Put the Paris Option on your summer reading list
Review: The Paris Option is a solid action thriller, with the Covert-One team, led in the field by multi-talented Colonel John Smith (seen here as doctor, researcher, diplomat, agent, failed romantic, and loyal friend). Smith teams up with his long-time CIA and MI6 colleagues and a childhood friend / electronics genius. The team moves quickly and easily from US to Europe and Northern Africa in search of terrorists who are only a front for other terrorists who are only a front for the real evil-doers. This thing has plot twists within other enigmatic plot twists. For several chapters, we dont even know which of the protangonists are dead or alive. On the downside, the Covert-One team and their camp-followers have nearly unbelievable extra-ordinary moments, seemingly ripped from the Superman cartoons. Why can't three poorly armed agents battle an army of trained terrorists if they have a French actress also on their side? Why can't John Smith stowaway on a terrorist boat for several days with no weapons, occasionally killing a few meddlesome terrorists without being noticed? This is a good read for the beach. Enjoy it, but don't take it too seriously. The idea that our European allies would unite to form a second superpower and regard the US as an enemy seemed impossible until the most recent outbreak of lunacy at the United Nations.
Rating:
Summary: A Crushing Bore: The Paris Option
Review: Third in the Covert-One series, this novel opens with a literal bang. Someone has destroyed with explosives one of the laboratory buildings in the famed Pasteur Institute. Not only is the building leveled, but also in the raging fire that followed, the world's first DNA or molecular computer was destroyed as well as its creator Dr. Emile Chamberland. For Covert-One agent Jon Smith the attack is personal as his good friend Dr. Marty Zellerbach was gravely injured. In addition, because of some very strange events surrounding military communications, there is a possibility the computer was not destroyed and may be in the hands of terrorists.Soon, Jon Smith arrives in Paris and finds his good friend lying near death in a coma. In fact, Jon Smith arrives just in time to prevent a second murder attempt on his friend's life. At the same time, someone apparently using the new computer manages to bring down the entire United States utility and communication grids. Deaf and blind, the United Sates stands vulnerable to attack and the terrorists seem to be seeing how much havoc they can cause before they launch their final cataclysmic strike. With the fate of the world in the balance as well as his friend's life, Jon begins to follow the complex trail to the terrorists and their secret lair. While that is the premise of what could have been a very enjoyable book, the execution is fatally flawed. Despite it's Bond style ending, much of this book commits the cardinal sin for any thriller. Boredom. This book is an incredible flat, dull read and quite a disappointment. This book is work to read and becomes a long march through the mud of boredom to reach the closing fifty pages that are mediocre at best. While for long time readers of the late Robert Ludlum it has always been clear that this series did not stand up to Ludlum standards, the other two novels were at least fairly enjoyable. Both The Hades Factor (Coauthor Gayle Lynds) and The Cassandra Compact (coauthor Philip Shelby) while overwritten at times featured plenty of action and engaged the reader at least somewhat. However, in this novel, the overwriting is extremely prevalent throughout the novel and the read is entirely flat and without emotion. Even in scenes where, for example, terrorists are attacking Marty's hospital room, the sense of emotion or nerve-racking danger prevalent in Ludlum works is nowhere apparent. The boredom factor is enhanced by the fact that released as a large trade paperback; this novel is 425 pages long. One gets the sense that the authors were paid by the word. Or that Gayle Lynds was unable to correctly follow Robert Ludlum's famous multi hundred plus page outline to properly create the work. The result is a novel that is seriously weaker than the first novel of the series, which she co-authored, and a sign that the series may die without the influence of the legendary master.
Rating:
Summary: Boiler-Plate Action....
Review: When John Smith, covert one operative extraordinaire is called to Paris to investigate a bombing at the Pasteur Institute and subsequent death of a noted scientist, little does he realize the depths of the problem. The famous (or infamous) scientist has created a hellish 'DNA computer' capable of destroying and hacking into the most sophisticated systems. Who can help? John's old friend Marty a computer genius who suffers from Asperges syndrome. But Marty is in a coma, and the computer is missing....Can John stop the terrorist plot in time?
Frankly, the plot of this novel sounds far more interesting than this audio book actually was. Ludlum rambles on at length about each government, their response, each agent, their response. The Nefarious French. Muslim Fundamentalists. A bomb. Jihad. John smith is captured, manages to escape, is captured again, and the DNA computer is found and moved. Found and Moved.
I liked the idea of this book, and I like Marty. But John as a character is rather wooden and lifeless. The other characters are merely stereotypes. Not his best work.
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