The Bourne Imperative

Jason Bourne #10

by Eric Van Lustbader

The man Jason Bourne fishes out of the freezing sea is near death, half-drowned and bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound. He awakens with no memory of who he is or why he was shot-and Bourne is eerily reminded of his own amnesia. Then Bourne discovers that the Mossad agent named Rebeka is so determined to find this injured man that she has gone off the grid, cut her ties to her agency, and is now being stalked by Mossad’s most feared killer. Do the answers to these mysteries lie back in southeast Lebanon, in a secret encampment to which Bourne and Rebeka escaped following a firefight weeks ago?

The complex trail links to the mission given to Treadstone directors Peter Marks and Soraya Moore: find the semi-mythic terrorist assassin known as Nicodemo.
In the course of Bourne’s desperate, deadly search for a secret that will alter the future of the entire world, he will experience both triumph and loss, and his life will never be the same.

Now everything turns on the amnesiac. Bourne must learn his identity and purpose before both he and Rebeka are killed. From Stockholm to Washington, D.C., from Mexico City to Beijing, the web of lies and betrayals extends into a worldwide conspiracy of monumental proportions.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Action, Mystery Thriller, Espionage, Suspense

449 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 5, 2012

About the author

Eric Van Lustbader was born and raised in Greenwich Village. He is the author of more than twenty-five best-selling novels, including The Ninja, in which he introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction's most beloved and enduring heroes. The Ninja was sold to 20th CenturyFox, to be made into a major motion picture. His novels have been translated into over twenty languages.

Mr. Lustbader is a graduate of Columbia College, with a degree in Sociology. Before turning to writing full time, he enjoyed highly successful careers in the New York City public school system, where he holds licenses in both elementary and early childhood education, and in the music business, where he worked for Elektra Records and CBS Records, among other companies.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/ericva...

Reviews

[B.R. Stateham · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I like the Bourne series I have to confess the character is beginning to wear thin on me. Wear thin in that he's becoming two deminsional. He travels all over the world. He speaks every language known to man. He wins all his fights. And he absorbs more punishment that a krypton-clad Superman---and still keeps on ticking like a Timex!!

How about less mindless action and more story? More suspense. A real puzzler to win with sudden jabbing nightmarish flashes of searing action interspersed within the read? THAT would be refreshing!

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like lots of people, I've long been a fan of the Jason Bourne series. And when Mr. Ludlum died, I thought we had lost a fine novelist. His vocabulary was impressive.

Van Lustbader has never been my favorite author. The previous Jason Bourne adventure he penned surprised me: I liked it. Then came this one. And I was again disappointed. Mr. Van Lustbader trades a decent vocabulary for the constant and completely unnecessary use of the famed "f" word. It isn't pleasant reading.

Add to that a book that seemed never-ending with all the various plot complications and a huge cast of characters and I found myself just racing through the book just to get to the end. I kept hoping it would get better. Now I regret having spent so much time on such a mediocre read when I could have been reading something engrossing, or thrilling or just plain good.

I guessing that next time I come across a Van Lustbader book - Jason Bourne or not - I will think twice before plucking it off the shelf. He's an over-rated writer.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This action-packed thriller is the latest in the popular series starring Jason Bourne, a black ops agent whose identity as a spy has obliterated his recollection of who he really is. This is the tenth book in the series; the first three were written by Robert Ludlum himself before his death in 2001.
Jason Bourne has enemies not just because of his position in world of spies, counter-spies and international crime, but personal ones. Throughout the years he has made enemies in every aspect of criminal and terrorist underworlds in a long list of nations around the world. The “myth” of Jason Bourne -- a ruthless agent who will kill anyone to accomplish his goals, is a creation of a top secret agency of US Special Forces.
The Bourne Imperative begins when Jason Bourne fishes a man, half-frozen, out of a lake in Sweden. The man initially suffers from amnesia, but as he regains his memory, it is clear that he has been sent by his superiors against Bourne.
The action moves from Sweden to the Middle East to Gibraltar and Paris and to the US and Mexico and back again, as the threads of action-packed narrative move toward a conclusion that can only result in someone’s death. The crux of the matter may be $30 million destined for a drug cartel in Mexico, or is that only part of the problem?
An arm of the CIA called Treadstone, designed to carry out dangerous and top secret operations, maintains a network of agents who ostensibly work for the same goals as Bourne, but both loyalties and resentments that go back many years often obscure their motivations. Bourne’s world is one where anything can be done, if you are unscrupulous enough and know the right people. The unrelenting action in the novel clearly show how this series has become so popular both in print and on the screen.
(Review published in Suspense Magazine)

[Johnny G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts of this book that I really got into: some of the action sequences, Bourne, his allies, the villains, the robust settings from Sweden to Mexico City to Lebanon, and then there was the other 2/3 of the novel. It seems like the author felt the need to have so many characters double-cross each other because Robert Ludlum would've approved. But there comes a point when too much is just too much. I have been a sucker for the Bourne series going back to the original trilogy, but the continuation of him in these books needs to sharpen up or I'm out.

[David Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started off reading this via a used hardback purchase (friends of the Library sale) and finished as a Kindle loan via my digital library. Another great Bourne thriller. Eric published so many of these I am afraid I let more than a few slip by me. I have read the first 3 by Ludlum of course, then the first 3 by Lustbader and the first 3 by Brian Freeman. I will pick up more of the Lustbadder Bourne's thrillers and keep abreast of the Freeman books.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly...not impressed. Does anyone know of an author that can write a great spy novel/political thriller that knows how to write without using the F-word every few pages? Help me out here. I'm having a hard time finding them.

[Tony Laplume · Rating 2 out of 5]

This right here is why I generally don’t read thrillers, since they’re such rote material any hack can write them, and when a hack writes them they become truly abominable.

Bourne Imperative is several books into Eric Van Lustbader’s continuation of the series. I’ve never read the original Ludlums. I don’t really see the point. I haven’t even seen all of the movies. This is spycraft in a post-Soviet world, even though The Bourne Identity was published the year I was born, a decade before the collapse of the USSR. So maybe that whole thing was more inevitable than history suggests. Or it was always hack material. Spy exists only to be a random rogue agent. Who is he??? Who cares? David Webb. Apparently he never recovers his memories of that life. Making it all the more pointless.

Van Lustbader, in this book, uses as the hook that Bourne comes across some dude who mirrors his condition at the start of the series. But Van Lustbader himself is barely interested in this idea. Instead he plunges into a needlessly Byzantine mix of characters that only occasionally has anything at all to do with Bourne (again, not having read the Ludlums, I have no idea if this was standard in those, and I really don’t care), most of whom seem to be Van Lustbader originals.

Van Lustbader mixes the kind of international travel porn you can find in Dan Brown, that he actually seems to know how to write, with mind-numbingly awful prose, sometimes so repetitive it seems it was composed by a software program. His smart capable people are constantly acting stupid. He doesn’t know the first thing about what reads at all convincingly. And he just segues from one beat to another, careless as to whether they connect organically or not.

I made it more than three hundred pages. But it was time to cut losses. There was just no point.

[Sherrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Double and triple agents. Characters with three names. Improbable connections. Wheels within wheels. Overly complex and annoying. This Jason Bourne is not the Bourne of the Ludlow novels. He has the skills but not the soul. Thumbs down.

[Matthew West · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horribly convoluted, poorly written attempt at a spy novel. Utterly unreadable.

I had never heard of Van Lustbader when I picked this up, I was mainly drawn by the Bourne product name which usually guarantees quality in my experience of the Ludlum works.

Lustbader has vainly attempted to appeal to the short attention spans of a younger audience though lacks any real story-telling panache, consistently offering one and two (sometimes three) page scenes that cause the story to stop-and-start, not ebb and flow. Several characters and several strands of the plot are introduced simultaneously and subsequently abandoned in subsequent chapters, which can be confusing. Add to this mix the fact that Van Lustbader can't write much better than Matthew Reilly and the book starts to snowball into a massive failure.

There is not one scene in the novel that will inspire or excite you. It feels drab and dull. The plain, dry writing style fails to grab you and combined with the convoluted plot I lost interest very quickly. The constantly changing perspectives don't give time for any exposition and scenes are rushed to the finish, causing characters to appear very one dimensional. I sure didn't see any of Robert Ludlum's Bourne in this novel. Just a cardboard-cutout hero who mentions elements of previous (better) Bourne novels to remind the reader who he is. His dialogue is sparse, uninvolving. His sidekicks are given no backstory or exposition.

Poor writing and plotting aside, Van Lustbader is simply not cut out as an action writer. His perception of espionage operating procedures is childish and cliched, especially his depiction of women as little more than typical femme-fatale assassins. Set pieces fizzle and aren't exciting in the slightest, failing to effectively get the adrenaline going and feeling as if they go on for hours. He also has an over-reliance on extraordinary coincidences and "magic", assuming that nobody can hide from a spy killer anywhere in the world and never offering any explanation for why the bad guys show up and how they managed to follow Bourne and his lackeys halfway around the world with no trail to go on.

I gave up at around page 100, see if you can do better.

It's amateur hour at it's best. Pick your cliche. Re-read an old Ludlum novel instead.

[Nabarun · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Bourne novel which I read, but have seen the movies over and over again! Always wanted to read this series, hence the leap of faith and I was not disappointed.

The book starts when a man is shot by a Mossad agent, Rebeka, and he falls in the river and is flown down stream only to be picked up byJason Bourne. For Jason, it's deja vu and hence he wants to help him. He saves the guy and takes him back to the place where he saved him. And that's when the plot starts to unfold into a bigger plot, where the drowning man was actually sent to kill Jason.

Plenty of sub plots have been ingrained in the novel by the author to build up the suspense of the book. Lots of characters were introduced in the first part of the book. And no geographical location was left out of this novel - Sweden, Mexico, China, Lebanon, Israel, US, UK! And Eric's writing style includes too much context switching between multiple subplots and characters, at times left me a bit frustrated. But then, all these subplots in the end are quite nicely linked to the main plot and final climax is quite a nice culmination of the book. All the loose ends tied up, Bourne takes care of the villains but loses someone he loves in the process - all in a days work for Jason and makes the readers happy. Well, yes, to some extent.

The best thing about this book was time spent on grooming each character that was brought to life in the first part and subsequently taken out in the last part. It was really meticulously combed and felt great reading them. Perhaps Eric's too much context switching from one subplot to the other was justified to keep the readers riveted to the book. What felt nice was the action mentioned in the book is in perfect dose, not too much but not too less as well, enough to hold the readers imagination.

Overall a good fast read. Would now read move in this series by Eric.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the Bourne movies, but I've never been able to get past the first few chapters of the third book. I think it's probably because those first few books are awfully dated (and the movies stray so far from them that they're hardly similar any more), and I was hoping that even though I hadn't read the books between this one and those first few that I might like it better. I think I did, though there are definitely things I was missing because I didn't know the recent history of the characters. I think I like Lustbader's style better than Ludlum's, though I'd be hard pressed to mention the differences. This is an action book, through and through. You'll find political drama, a lot of whodunit (there's another character with amnesia, after all), some romance, and not a little cheesy dialogue. The settings range all over the world, and there are some gritty, ugly places that Bourne and his fellow spies have to deal with. Quite a few people betray others, and there are deaths and injuries that might take you by surprise. Sometimes the plot moves slowly, but it builds to an intense finish. One of these days I'll go back and try to read some of the other books in the series so I can figure out what the characters were talking about. The characters sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what they're going to do and what they've done, but if you can make it through those parts, you'll be rewarded with detailed action.

I received this as a digital ARC via Netgalley and the publisher.

[Tony Nielsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in the latest Jason Bourne thriller. For me there were actually too many characters that it was hard to maintain focus on the action. Its not a vote against Eric Van Lustbader who was charged by the Ludlum estate to continue the legacy following Robert Ludlum's death. Some of his earlier effots have been OK but not thia time. The mix includes the usual Threadstone line-up, the Isaraeli Mossad, a Mexican drug lord, a Chinese politian and a cast of thousands which is the problem. No matter I did finish it but it didn't do much for me.

[Maurice · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a terrible read. The story was too convoluted and too many characters and things going on. Could not finish fast enough as I slowly got through the book. Won't be reading any more books with Ludlum's name on it that wasn't written by Ludlum. It was so bad I thought it might be me. So I picked up the latest Vince Flynn book and its as captivating as his preceding books. Do yourself a favor and take a pass on The Bourne Imperative.

[Erth · Rating 4 out of 5]

now i am hooked. This was such a great, easy and creative book. i was hooked after the first page.

The characters were easy to fall in love with and follow, along with the story. the author made the mental visions so easy and vivid of the surroundings and the characters actions felt so real.

i would highly recommend this author and this book.

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

At least governments have stopped trying to have Bourne killed. The grudges are personal now.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Spy Thriller

By the time I got to The Bourne Imperative, Eric Van Lustbader’s tenth entry in the extended Bourne canon, I was already deep in the trenches of Jason Bourne’s labyrinthine world. What strikes me here is how the book balances on a knife-edge between the Bourne of Ludlum—enigmatic, resourceful, and shadow-drenched—and the Bourne of Lustbader, who is more layered with psychological torment and haunted vulnerabilities.

The novel begins with Bourne rescuing a half-drowned man who, predictably, has no memory of who he is. Déjà vu, right?

It’s as if Bourne sees himself reflected in the mirror of this stranger, and the “imperative” isn’t just the mission but the need to grapple with identity itself.

What unfolds is a chase sprawling across continents—Europe, Russia, and America—with the usual intercontinental espionage chaos that is Lustbader’s trademark. Russian ultra-nationalists, shadow CIA agendas, sleeper cells, and a mosaic of betrayals lace the plot, but the through-line is Bourne’s obsession with piecing together not just his mission but his own moral compass.

It’s darker here, less about the immediate adrenaline rush and more about the cost of carrying multiple identities. Ludlum’s Bourne was always reactive, running from an unseen past, but Lustbader’s Bourne is more reflective, almost tragically aware that each life saved or taken is another stone in his grave of conscience.

Comparatively, The Imperative feels more intimate than something like The Bourne Supremacy, which had the gigantic Cold War scaffolding around it. This one is about fragmented memory, both for Bourne and the rescued amnesiac, giving it a psychological edge closer to Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold than to the raw brutality of, say, Fleming’s Bond or Clancy’s militarised sagas.

Yet Lustbader never skimps on action—the set pieces, especially the cat-and-mouse hunts across Russian landscapes, pulse with cinematic energy. At times, it echoes the Bourne films, but where Damon’s Bourne is a sleek killing machine of precision, Lustbader’s Bourne is wearier, more human, and therefore, ironically, more dangerous.

I found myself thinking of how spy thrillers often pivot between two poles: the operatic spectacle of Bond and the disillusioned realism of Le Carré. Bourne has always been the messy middle, combining fractured memory, conspiratorial states, and brutal action. The Bourne Imperative shows how far the character has shifted from Ludlum’s original, without losing the tension that makes him compelling. It’s not perfect—the plot sprawls, and Lustbader sometimes overindulges in descriptive excess—but it has a sincerity about Bourne’s inner fractures that makes it resonate.

Reading this as part of the binge, it felt like a deepening of Bourne’s character rather than just another installment. It proves that spy thrillers don’t always have to be about saving the world; sometimes they’re about saving fragments of the self from being lost forever.

In that sense, The Bourne Imperative earns its place in the long shadow of Ludlum’s creation, less explosive than the original trilogy but far more probing about the man behind the assassin’s mask.

[Vera VB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanneer Jason Bourne een man uit het ijskoude water redt die een schotwond heeft en zich nadien niets kan herinneren, krijgt hij een déja-vu. Zo is het hem immers ook vergaan.

Er gebeurt veel op verschillende fronten en het is lang wachten hoe alles samen komt. Ik heb best al veel boeken met Jason Bourne gelezen, maar deze beviel me niet. Het leek wel een andere Bourne dan in de andere boeken. Ik vond hem wat stuntelig en amateuristisch en dat ben ik niet van hem gewoon.

[Robert Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sadly, not as good as the earlier books in the series.
Ludlum's initial 3 books were great; I loved them.
When Van Lustbader picked up the series, I was skeptical, but curious. After being pleasently surprised by the first few installments, either the he or the series lost momentum--or I lost interest.
Whatever the case, I only give this one 3.5 stars.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

[Alabama Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imperative is a follow on to the story told in Bourne Dominion. Jason is teamed with a rogue Mossad agent how will stop at nothing to get the job done. Unfortunately the Mossad agent needs information that only one man possesses and he is shot and disappears under the ice.

An unlikely alliance between a Mexican drug cartel, an American energy company, the Chinese war lords, and the Israelis is exposed and Bourne must get to each new destination before it is too late.

[Tania]

DNF. I am way into this book and I have been enjoying it but I've been confused. Maybe because it's the audiobook edition. Maybe too much Christmas and new year cheer, (too many cookies), but I honestly couldn't tell you who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. It's a really good book I just don't really know what's going on so I'm going to stop and hope that I can find that it's been made into a movie. I have other books I'm anxious to start.

[Tim Flanagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's okay. It's not Jack Reacher. There's a lot of things that seem to happen by chance or by one of the characters making a decision, but then later on in the book, you're told that it has all happened for a reason and they've been manipulated to do the things they did. (Trying not to give too much of the story away!!) You have to take a leap of faith with this book. Not as good as the films.

[Marc Tiefenthal]

Minderwaardige spionageroman. Geschreven om meteen verfilmd te kunnen worden. Bloedschone vrouwen, daar wemelt het van. Onwerelds. Plot gemaakt volgens de richtlijnen van het actualiteisme. Er zit te veel denkwerk in over het zijn van de spion. Actie genoeg, voor de rest. Maar het geheel mist datgene wat een Ludlum had om een boek te 'smaken'. Veel lust, ja. Je baadt erin.

[Alex Peck · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, he did it. Van Lustbader made me care EVEN LESS about Jason Bourne. The titular character drifts further and further into the unrecognizable. This story continues the author’s trend of confusing complexity from fascinating, creating a bloated story with such empty characters.

I can’t WAIT for these to end.

[Bill Buckley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book because I like the Jason Bourne movies. They are exciting and interesting so I thought the book would be the same, and it did not disappoint. The books/movies are similar to James Bond.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bourne has his head nearly severed from his body (in the last 30 pages), but no mention of any injury as he overcomes his enemy and continues to drive, talk, etc. Also, Rebeka is occasionally spelled as Rebecca.

[Bob · Rating 1 out of 5]

bucket of worms!
I quit after 355 grueling pages.
I gave it a good try.
Mr. Lustbader seems to be too educated for the average reader, using words like, desultorly, gelid water, tendentiously and adamantine.

[Ginny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The saga of Jason Bourne continues as he saves the world from yet another diabolical plot. I think it is time to retire this character, can't understand how his body can take the amount of abuse from fights, flights and stress.

[Monzenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the one hand, the continued narrative and the usual thrills are definite five-star moments. On the other hand, damn they did Soraya dirty. Which has been a trend among the female agents in the last few Lustbader-era books, to be honest. This time it took off a star from my reading experience.

[Terry Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took half the book for it to truly engage me, hence the bit by bit read. (A waiting for an appointment book) I’m a fan of the movies and found myself casting the characters as I read. Several obvious errors by overall a decent, fun read.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable, but not Robert Ludlam. If you read it as an action story by Van Lustbader it is not bad. He has taken a lot of it from NCIS, the characters are similar, especially the Mossad ones.