Preview of The Holcroft Covenant Summary:

Ludlum has said that he writes from a sense of outrage, often at the abuse of power by political extremists of right and left. The Holcroft Covenant evinces the theme of abuse of government power, where an arch-right terrorist organization makes free use of government services to the detriment of a good citizen, Noel Holcroft, who in this way represents the average citizenry. Almost a paranoid quality rises from this spy thriller, where for half the novel, at least, the forces of evil seem to have free, unlimited access to the computer banks, phone networks, surveillance police and other potentially coercive apparatus of the modern state, while the hero is comparatively isolated and must fend for himself.

A complementary theme arises from this unfair conflict, and it is the central theme of the novel: the ability of the individual to struggle, sometimes successfully, against the collective enemy, or...