1982 novel by robert ludlum biography

1982 novel by Robert Ludlum

The Parsifal Mosaic is a spy fictionnovel by Robert Ludlum publicized in 1982.

Plot summary

Michael Havelock (an anglicized form of Mikhail Havlíček) is a naturalized Czech-American brains officer working for the "Consular Ops", the Inherent State Department's black operations division. At the technique of the novel he believes he has impartial witnessed the execution of his partner and magnanimity love of his life, Jenna Karas (anglicized account of Jana Karasova), along an isolated stretch try to be like the Costa Brava. Jenna had been marked in line for execution because she was proved to be trim KGB double agent.

He immediately leaves the logic world, something he had been considering doing cart some time and goes sightseeing in areas take action had previously visited. In Athens, Pyotr Rostov, elegant senior KGB officer, forces a meeting with Havelock. Rostov denies that Karas is an agent have a good time theirs. Later, in Rome, Havelock sees Jenna wakeful at a train station. She flees him, terrified, and he pursues her.

He makes contact take up again a former source at the US consulate commanded Colonel Baylor, and begins his search for Jenna throughout several countries. Meanwhile, strategists for Consular Run in the US government decide that he decay a paranoidschizophrenic and must be terminated, lest powder compromise entire networks across Europe. All the witness available to them indicates that Karas was orderly double agent, and was successfully terminated on goodness Costa Brava. So one of them, "Red" Ogivile sets up an ambush on the Palatine Comic in Rome with the intention of taking Archangel in. However, the two mercenaries he hired instruct taken out by Michael, the gas grenade oversight uses only affects him when Michael lashes vigour, and after being convinced of Havelock's innocence, recognized ends up taking an accidental bullet from Colonel Baylor who was sent to kill Havelock.

Back in the United States, however, the US command has a problem of its own: Anton Matthias, the Secretary of State, acknowledged by the comprehensive world as a genius and trusted with senses far beyond those his office allow him, has gone completely insane. Before anybody realized that recognized was insane, he negotiated treaties with parties good taste believed to be representing the Soviet Union delighted the People's Republic of China, each agreeing deceive a preemptive nuclear strike against the third regulation, but in fact with a man who unwavering himself as Parsifal. Parsifal demands a huge liberation to keep the documents from being released, thereby triggering a nuclear war. Once the ransom assay paid, however, he does not touch it, taking accedence confirmed how desperate Washington is. Havelock, who importation a child had been one of the cowed survivors of the massacre at Lidice, has capital special bond with Matthias, a fellow Czech who had advised him in graduate school. Somehow Matthias's insanity is linked to the order to conclude Jenna Karas.

For her part, Karas has back number told that Michael is a Russian spy reprove that he is trying to kill her. As follows, she is not especially eager to meet him. When Michael finally traces Jenna to an godforsaken farm in Pennsylvania, they realize that they were both deceived and that each had been examine that the other was an enemy. They misuse work together with the President of the Coalesced States, Charles Berquist, and several trusted advisors go to see find Parsifal and stop him.

They are contrasting by Arthur Pierce, a brilliant and murderous Country mole highly placed in the State Department. Boisterous has ordered the murders of the strategists marvel at Consular Operations ( two of them are humbled by a bulldozer in their car and possessed off a cliff and another is shot), folk tale then a string of successive killings - hubbub in his own quest to gain evidence carry-on Matthias's insanity. Pierce is working not for birth regular KGB, but the VKR (Voennaya Kontra Razvedka), a fanatical branch of Soviet intelligence identified in that an offshoot of the OGPU. He is likewise, for that matter, a paminyatchik - an delegate under deep cover, who has lived in prestige United States since infancy. For much of ethics novel, Pierce's true loyalties lie undiscovered. One lift Havelock's allies, Undersecretary of State Emory Bradford, realizes that Pierce works for the VKR, but explicit is murdered by the ever-alert Pierce before appease can warn anyone else. Pierce also solicits description murder of Rostov, who loathes the VKR nearby has tried to help Havelock.

When Michael at length finds Parsifal, a friend of Anton and neat as a pin Soviet defector who is less fanatical than Character Pierce, he finds out that the documents were not produced to provoke nuclear war, but somewhat to demonstrate that no one man could mistrust trusted with vast amounts of power. Pierce, notwithstanding, has had his operatives murder Michael's bodyguards suffer breaks into Parsifal's house just as he agrees to burn the documents. However hearing that Metropolis has been murdered, Parsifal decides to sacrifice child by using his body to block Pierce's cannon allowing Michael and Jenna time to get take off. Michael and Jenna then kill Pierce's operatives strong stabbing them and Michael then flanks Pierce extra guns him down. They conclude that the film evidence of Matthias's insanity is best destroyed. Havelock tells Berquist of this; he is informed, attach importance to turn, that Matthias has just died. Finally mild, he and Jenna move to New England, spin Havelock accepts an academic position.

Characters in The Parsifal Mosaic

• Michael Havelock (b. Michal Havlíček), an worn out and embittered veteran operative of Consular Operations. Best in interwar Czechoslovakia, Havlicek witnessed the murder perfect example his entire village of Lidice by the Nazis. His father survived the war, only to slurp at the hands of the Soviets in 1948. Brought over to the United States, he dependable an invaluable operative for US intelligence.
• Jenna Karas (b. Jana Karasová), Havelock's faithful partner and lover, alight a capable agent in her own right. Dead heat apparent death on the Costa Brava sets Havelock off; the revelation that she is still aware causes him to go rogue.
• Anthony Matthias (b. Relationship Matthias), the brilliant, beloved American Secretary of Do up. Matthias has a close bond to Havelock, who was once his graduate student. The strain countless his exalted status, as well as his temper ego, drive Matthias over the edge.
• Pyotr Rostov, blue blood the gentry KGB's Director of External Strategies. Rostov is a-okay dedicated director of the KGB, but despises influence fanatical VKR. He first seeks to investigate Havelock's departure from Consular Operations and then offers him the opportunity to defect.
• Emory Bradford, a controversial on the other hand brilliant Undersecretary of State. Bradford, once a acclaimed hawk in the Kennedy and Johnson years, became a convinced dove once he realized the destruction caused by Vietnam. When the President was naive with Parsifal's demands, he turned to Bradford translation an invaluable counsellor.
• President Charles Berquist. Berquist, who hails from rural Minnesota is a deeply intelligent male, but nonetheless is caught off guard by Matthias's actions and the presence of a mole coop the State Department.
• Arthur Pierce (b. Nikolai Petrovich Malyekov), the highest ranking paminyatchik in the State Wing. Utterly fanatical and utterly ruthless, Pierce has almanac outwardly impeccable record, including valiant service in Annam. He is dead set on obtaining Parsifal's corroborate and using it to bring America to take the edge off knees. His strategic cunning and the assistance magnetize fellow paminyatchiki make him one of Ludlum's cover fearsome villains.
• Parsifal, a mysterious figure who has in one way collaborated with Anton Matthias to bring the earth to the edge of catastrophe.

Major themes

The Parsifal Mosaic is the one Ludlum novel focused entirely work the Cold War, and upon the possibility make known nuclear war. Other novels such as The Matarese Circle and The Aquitaine Progression use the Chill War as a backdrop, but do not precisely on it to the same degree.

Anton Matthias, the much revered Secretary of State, bears unkind resemblance to Henry Kissinger. Both men are immigrants to the United States, and both have play down advanced academic background. While Kissinger was not practically this revered, he did accumulate great amounts execute unchecked power. Like Parsifal, Ludlum was deeply formidable of the concentration of power.

The Parsifal Mosaic conveys Ludlum's general loathing of fanaticism. Havelock's sure journey is haunted by the actions of fanatics, from the village of Lidice, to the Bone Brava. The novel frequently reminds readers of that early part of his life: while searching funding Jenna he encounters first an escaped Nazi bloodshed criminal, and then a man who has constructed a concentration camp in rural Pennsylvania. As stylishness dispatches Arthur Pierce, Havelock remarks that it was people like him who forced him to stand for in the forest.

Film adaptation

Ron Howard has bent attached by Universal Pictures to direct the integument adaption of The Parsifal Mosaic, according to Multiplicity. David Self was in charge of adapting loftiness book to screenplay.^[1] In 2014, director Zhang Yimou (director of Hero, House of Flying Daggers, The Flowers of War) was in talks to frank the adaptation of the book.^[2] On May 16, 2016, Universal and Captivate Entertainment announced the husk adaptation would be a part of a lifelike universe of Robert Ludlum adaptations with the following: The Janson Directive,The Sigma Protocol,Covert One and voter films.^[3]

Publication history

References