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The Road to Gandolfo (1975)

by Robert Ludlum
(#1 in Road to)

In this wickedly funny novel, Robert Ludlum combines the explosive pacing of The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy with a bitingly witty send-up of everything from government bureaucrats and pandering military men to the mob, the law, and organized religion.

War hero and infamous ladies’ man General MacKenzie Hawkins is a living legend. His life story has even been sold to Hollywood. But now he stands accused of defacing a historic monument in China’s Forbidden City. Under house arrest in Peking with a case against him pending in Washington, this looks like the end of Mac’s illustrious career. But he has a plan of his own: kidnap the Pope.

What’s the ransom? Just one American dollar—for every Catholic in the world. Add to the mix a slew of shady “investors,” Mac’s four persuasive, well-endowed ex-wives, and a young lawyer and fellow soldier who wants nothing more than to return to private life, and readers have in their hands one relentlessly irreverent page-turner.

Originally published under the pseudonym Michael Shepard.

“Don’t ever begin a [Robert] Ludlum novel if you have to go to work the next day.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined.”—The New York Times