Equation doesn’t add up for Ludlum’s literary heir

Fiction; Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Equation; By Douglas Corleone; Orion, €26.60

Robert Ludlum died in 2001, but his bestseller machine rolls relentlessly on Picture: Getty

Daydream fiction has, or should have, an honourable place in the culture. To complain that popular fiction is escapist is to seriously undervalue the pleasures of escaping reality.

Reality is tax ...