The Bourne Ascendancy - Eric van Lustbader
“The King is dead. Long live the King!”
With those words, the crown passes in a monarchy. In the literary world, the passage of the crown is couched in hundreds of pages of legalese and minuscule print, but – as in a monarchy – there’s no guarantee that the successor to the throne will become a beloved figure. When Robert Ludlum passed in 2001, Eric van Lustbader ascended “the Bourne Throne”; picking up the mysterious former Treadstone agent and carrying him forward…
…into a world of increasing improbability. Ludlum published only three Bourne novels over a decade, van Lustbader has pumped out a new volume annually since 2007. The frantic pace, unfortunately, has not been kind to the series. A case in point is The Bourne Ascendancy.
Weary of the spy game, the polyglot, master of disguise, master of multiple martial arts, and master of every weapon known to mankind who calls himself “Jason Bourne” has taken up a new trade, blacksmith. No, he doesn’t forge iron items with a hammer and anvil and he isn’t a farrier, either: Bourne has become a double for hire. This contract ends in a hail of gunfire, Bourne captured, the sole survivor of a massacre at the hands of the terrorist El Ghadan. The big guy has a job for Bourne; a job suitable to his skills: assassinate the President of the United States (hereafter referred to as POTUS – constantly) at a time and place of the terrorist's choosing. If he refuses or fails, his dearest friend Soraya Moore and her two-year-old daughter Sonya will suffer the consequences. With that charge, Bourne is set loose to devise a plan and do the deed – all in a single week. |
