My dad would read Robert Ludlum’s books and as a kid, I thought these books where impossibly complicated literature. But rather, this book is like a good meal in a restaurant, or some action movie you turn on and lay back for. There’s some slow warm-up and then the story unfolds with a lot of spectacle and bravado. It’s from before the Berlin wall fell, before mobile phones or easy internet. From before I was born. It’s not high-end literature but it’s thrilling and just a lot of fun. And if there’s a lesson in it, it’s Ludlum’s stoicism.