The Bourne supremacy
(Book)

Ludlum has never come up with a more head-spinning, spine-jolting, intricately mystifying, Armageddonish, in short Ludlumesque, thriller than this. A Peking leader of seemingly irreproachable reputation, secretly a Kuomintang fanatic, has masterminded a plot to take over Hong Kong via political assassination, the result of which would be civil war in China and possibly global disaster. His principal agent is an assassin-for-hire masquerading as the legendary ``Jason Bourne,'' a one-time secret U.S. agent now, under his real name David Webb, struggling with the aid of a psychiatrist and his loving wife Marie to recover from amnesia. Only one man can destroy the conspiracy: Webb, who must be persuaded to re-assume his Bourne identity, track down the impostor and through him lay a trap for the vile Shengthe ``persuasion'' to be by way of his abducted wife. The action jolts from the back alleys of Hong Kong and Kowloon to a secret government complex in the Colorado mountains to the seats of power in Peking and even the interior of Mao's tomb. Every chapter ends with a cliff-hanger; the story brims with assassination, torture, hand-to-hand combat, sudden surprise and intrigue within intrigue. It's a sure-fire bestseller. 650,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; BOMC selection; Franklin Library limited edition. (March 15) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this sequel to The Bourne Identity , David Webb, still suffering flashbacks to his Jason Bourne persona, is forced to undertake a final, possibly fatal mission after his wife is kidnapped. He must find and capture an assassin who is posing as Bourne in Hong Kong. By so doing he'll foil a plot that could plunge the Far East and then the world into war. Ludlum's latest has a best seller quality that many imitate but few master. You can quibble about this being too long, too talky, too preposterously implausible, but you can't quit reading. As often happens with sequels, this is not quite up to the standards of the original, but legions of Ludlum fans will send it soaring up the best seller list. BOMC main selection. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Great Christian Jesus!. . .He's come back. The assassin has come back to Asia! Jason Bourne! He's come back!"" So it seems--when that legendary killer Jason Bourne apparently hits Hong Kong, killing (among others) the visiting Vice-Premier of China. But is this the real ""Jason Bourne,"" amnesiac US commando David Webb (a.k.a Delta), who (mostly against his will) posed as a super-assassin in order to trap the true-life assassin Carlos (a.k.a. the Jackal) in The Bourne Identity? No, it isn't! It's a fake Jason Bourne, a mercenary psycho employed by the evil Sheng, a Peking minister-of-state with secret right-wing takeover plans--plans that will lead to Armageddon in the Far East!! What can the US spymasters do to foil these vile schemes? Well, ruthless weirdos that they are, they decide to use the real Bourne, poor old David Webb (happily retired), to hunt down the fake Bourne and Sheng himself. And since Webb won't do any of this willingly, the spymasters (in disguise, of course) kidnap Webb's beloved wife Marie to Hong Kong, threatening to kill her unless Webb captures the fake Bourne. So, for the next 500 repetitious pages, Webb trails the psycho-killer from Hong Kong to Macao to Peking, sprinkling cash and blood and exclamation points as he gets Bourne-ier and Bourne-ier (""Good God!. . .Good Lord!. . .Oh, Christ!""). Meanwhile, Marie escapes with dubious ease from her US captors, becoming a Hong Kong fugitive with help from a Canadian diplomat (""Christ in Calgary, I don't need this!""). Eventually, with help from an old French ally (""Mon Dieu!""), Webb does nab the fake Bourne: ""It was the commando! The impostor! The assassin!"" But, after a bloody shootout and a feverish reunion with Marie in H.K., Webb voluntarily heads back into China to assassinate Sheng--because he has now learned just how evil Sheng really is: ""He's Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen all rolled into one. . . He's Hitler and Mengele and Genghis Khan. . .the chain-saw killer--whatever--but he has to go."" Here and there Ludlum supplies chunks of crudely effective derringdo: border-crossings by parachute, a chase through Mao's mausoleum, hand-to-hand combat with flashing knives. Heavy slatherings of Far Eastern local color are mildly diverting. Otherwise, however, Ludlum remains the most garishly inept of suspense storytellers, the most ludicrous and lumbering of unexplainable best-sellers. And readers who keep returning for more of the same--tediously implausible, convolutions, fatuous non-stop dialogue, comic-book narration--will get exactly what they deserve in this headache-inducing sequel. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In this sequel to The Bourne Identity , David Webb, still suffering flashbacks to his Jason Bourne persona, is forced to undertake a final, possibly fatal mission after his wife is kidnapped. He must find and capture an assassin who is posing as Bourne in Hong Kong. By so doing he'll foil a plot that could plunge the Far East and then the world into war. Ludlum's latest has a best seller quality that many imitate but few master. You can quibble about this being too long, too talky, too preposterously implausible, but you can't quit reading. As often happens with sequels, this is not quite up to the standards of the original, but legions of Ludlum fans will send it soaring up the best seller list. BOMC main selection. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass. Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.

Ludlum has never come up with a more head-spinning, spine-jolting, intricately mystifying, Armageddonish, in short Ludlumesque, thriller than this. A Peking leader of seemingly irreproachable reputation, secretly a Kuomintang fanatic, has masterminded a plot to take over Hong Kong via political assassination, the result of which would be civil war in China and possibly global disaster. His principal agent is an assassin-for-hire masquerading as the legendary ``Jason Bourne,'' a one-time secret U.S. agent now, under his real name David Webb, struggling with the aid of a psychiatrist and his loving wife Marie to recover from amnesia. Only one man can destroy the conspiracy: Webb, who must be persuaded to re-assume his Bourne identity, track down the impostor and through him lay a trap for the vile Shengthe ``persuasion'' to be by way of his abducted wife. The action jolts from the back alleys of Hong Kong and Kowloon to a secret government complex in the Colorado mountains to the seats of power in Peking and even the interior of Mao's tomb. Every chapter ends with a cliff-hanger; the story brims with assassination, torture, hand-to-hand combat, sudden surprise and intrigue within intrigue. It's a sure-fire bestseller. 650,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; BOMC selection; Franklin Library limited edition. (March 15) Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.