Ludlumesque

comparative more Ludlumesque · superlative most Ludlumesque · alternative Ludlum-esque

1. Plotted in the style of Robert Ludlum's novels, noted especially for their intricate and extensive use of thriller tropes.

   Ludlum has never come up with a more head-spinning, spine-jolting, intricately mystifying, Armageddonish, in short Ludlumesque, thriller than this.

   1986, “review of Robert Ludlum The Bourne Supremacy”, in Publishers Weekly

   3 more examples

   It had been damp; Scotch tape did not like the damp; in many cases her Ludlumesque little traps had undoubtedly just peeled off and floated away on some random draft.

   1987, Stephen King, Misery, Viking, page ??

   There's even a best-selling paperback novelist living in Frome, Dante Minuto, whom none of us has ever seen, who writes Ludlumesque thrillers with Ludlumesque titles, like The Marchpane Cicatrix and The Wiesenheimer Punctilio.

   2003, Jincy Willett, Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather, Thomas Dunne Books, page 112

   Its singularly serendipitous nature lends itself to romantic novelisation (book cross-dressing, as it were) or Ludlumesque thrillers (book double-crossing, so to speak).

   2006, Stephen Brown, “Rattles from the Swill Bucket”, in Stephen Brown, editor, Consuming Books: The Marketing and Consumption of Literature, Routledge, page 13

2. Titled in the style of Robert Ludlum's novels, typically consisting of "The", followed by a proper noun used attributively, then an understated common noun.

   It had not taken long for the press to bestow upon the event legendary status and a Ludlumesque name: “the 'macaca' incident.”

   2008, Howard Fineman, The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country, Random House, page 38

   2 more examples

   There's even a best-selling paperback novelist living in Frome, Dante Minuto, whom none of us has ever seen, who writes Ludlumesque thrillers with Ludlumesque titles, like The Marchpane Cicatrix and The Wiesenheimer Punctilio.

   2003, Jincy Willett, Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather, Thomas Dunne Books, page 112

   Most publicized is the Italian firm, Bulgari jewellery, who commissioned Fay Weldon, in 2001, to write what became The Bulgari Connection (in the circumstances, a wonderfully wry, Ludlumesque, title).

   2009, John Sutherland, Curiosities of Literature, Skyhorse Publishing, page 184