The Ambler Warning - Robert Ludlum

I really enjoy Robert Ludlum and have read many of his books over the last 25 years. This one, The Ambler Warning, didn’t disappoint.

It centres around a few turbulent weeks in the life of a former special agent named Hal Ambler. At the start of the book, he’s completely lost his identity and has no idea who is. But since he finds himself in a high security detention centre for the mentally disturbed, we get a clue that he might be someone with an interesting past. But as it stands, his life has been completely changed and all evidence of his existence has been erased. He comes to the conclusion that the entire world is against him.

However, quite early on in the story, he stages a daring escape from the centre, an action which calls on all the skills he clearly learned in his former life. And he has help too - from an apparently-sympathetic nurse, who he thinks has fallen in love with him. Or has she?

This book is a typical Ludlum story in which Ambler seems to have lost everything. But now free, he sets out to get it all back. Soon, however, he discovers that the world he has returned to is not the one he is slowly starting to remember. People and friends he once knew now claim no recollection of anyone called Hal Ambler. Even his old apartment is no longer his. With little or no money and the authorities now closing in on him after his escape, he knows he has to get to the truth and find out why everyone wants him dead.

It’s a great read about one man against the world. And there is a brilliant twist right at the end. I enjoyed it a lot. I’m sure you will too.