Suspense novelist Robert Ludlum "has his share of unkind critics who complain of implausible plots, leaden prose, and, as a caustic reviewer once sneered, an absence of 'redeeming literary values to balance the vulgar sensationalism,'" Susan Baxter and Mark Nichols noted in Maclean's. "But harsh critical words have not prevented Robert Ludlum ... from becoming one of the most widely read and wealthiest authors in the world." In fact, with sales of his books averaging 5.5 million copies each, Ludlum is "one of the most popular living authors [writing] in the English language," Baxter and Nichols concluded.

Authorship came as a second career for Ludlum, who worked in the theater and found success as a producer before writing his first novel at age 42. As a schoolboy in 1941, Ludlum ran away to New York and won a part in a traveling production of Junior Miss. When the play arrived in...