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The Bourne Imperative (2012)

by Eric Van Lustbader(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0446564478 (ISBN13: 9780446564472)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Grand Central Publishing

series

Jason Bourne

review 1: 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 n... moreovel - 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.
review 2: This book was an absolute mess. I picked up the book at the library to bide time till another book was returned. I also had hopes that this book would return the excitement that I once had for the series. I think I'm done hoping.The Bourne Imperative was a hodgepodge mix of overly used spy story plot and cliche. It was as if Lustbader was writing five different books, but under publisher deadlines, elected to stitch them all together with exposition occurring through overly talkative antagonists and oddly placed reminiscence and recollection. You literally have a supposed jihad terrorist, turned amnesiac ala Bourne, turned "Jinn that lights the way," turned assassin created by Mexican Cartel leadership. The story introduces antagonists to include corrupt Israeli Mossad, Columbian drug lords, corporate espionage, Mexican cartels with Aztec cult beliefs, and three quarters of the way in sneaks in Chinese governmental involvement. All of which know and hate Bourne, but lack relational foundation. It makes a mess of previous Bourne book characters, and leaves gaping plot holes with new characters introduced. Bourne remains a freakish un-aging zombie that no longer has any human qualities since the dissection of his David Webb personality. There were weird "F" bomb drops, and Lustbader has some fascination with nerve bundles in the neck (Bourne equivalent to a Vulcan neck pinch). There is no coming back from this pile. less

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