The name 'Robert Ludlum' has been trademarked. People will buy the brand name 'Ludlum' in far greater numbers than if the truth were told on the front of the dust jacket. If a new thriller is marketed as written by Ludlum right there on the cover, that means far higher sales than if the name is John Smith, or some other unknown writer. If the Estate of Robert Ludlum is willing to give Lustbader (and to continue the practice of crediting the Covert-One authors) writing credit, why not the secret author of the new 'Ludlum' books as well? I assume the idea is that these new Bourne books are Lustbader's creations, with no help from any unfinished manuscripts or notes from Ludlum. In addition to Ludlum's name, the real writers are credited on the covers as well: Gayle Lynds, Philip Shelby, Patrick Larkin, and James Cobb.Įric Van Lustbader has been contracted to continue the 'Bourne' series of books and is listed as the author on the covers. Will the Gruber Effect eventually hit the Ludlum author and will he publish under his own name at some point in the future, gaining some publicity and notoriety as the writer of Ludlum's posthumous thrillers? How long can this guy stand it to be in the shadows, and doesn't there come a point in his career where it's in his best interest to drop the veil?Īside from thrillers published solely under Ludlum's name, there is the Covert-One series of books. Former ghostwriter Michael Gruber was in a similar situation before finally publishing Tropic of Night under his own name in 2003. The person writing the Ludlum books must keep his name and role hidden from the public. But they have received generally warm reviews-sometimes lauded as better than most of the thrillers assuredly penned by Ludlum himself!

Reviewers of these books, on the other hand, know what's going on and state that Ludlum did not write them. Many people probably bought these books thinking Ludlum had written them himself. On the covers of these books, Ludlum is listed as the sole author. There is an 'author' (not Ludlum) who had a hand in the production of the novel: the statement above says so. Since his death, the Estate of Robert Ludlum has worked with a carefully selected author and editor to prepare and edit this work for publication. On the copyright page of the Ambler Warning is this statement: We (meaning the book-consuming public) don't really know how much or how little of Ludlum's own writing is contained in these posthumous works (if any) because there is no statement in any of them spelling it out. Who wrote all these books? Supposedly Ludlum left some unpublished and/or unfinished manuscripts as well as notes/outlines for future books.

Several novels have been published under his name since then: The Sigma Protocol, The Janson Directive, The Tristan Betrayal, The Ambler Warning, and the upcoming Bancroft Strategy. Best-selling thriller author Robert Ludlum died in 2001.

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