Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Sanction

by: Eric Van Lustbader

Published by: Grand Central Publishing

Reviewed by Bob Pike CSP, CPAE-Speakers Hall of Fame

Van Lustbader has admirably picked up the mantle of telling Bourne’s story from his creator, Robert Ludlum. After the first few pages you will be so engrossed in the action and so preoccupied with following the complex twisted action that you will find yourself chasing the same false trails that Ludlum laid in the previous novels in the Bourne series–with the same delight.

Jason Bourne is back at Georgetown University as his alter-ego, David Webb. He’s trying to settle back into academic life and put Bourne’s escapades and violent nature behind him. Then Professor Specter, Webb’s (and Bourne’s) mentor at the university, provides Bourne with both counsel and a plea for help.

A former student of his has been assassinated by a centuries-old Islamic terrorist group that has no apparent ties to the present. Thought defunct for more than 200 years, the Black Legion seems to be hatching a plot that will bring terrorism within the borders of the U.S again–in spades.

And what’s going on in the CIA and NSA isn’t helping keep the world (or even the U.S.) safe for democracy. Veronica Hart is the new director of CIA. Several of her closest advisors secretly believe she shouldn’t be. Neither does the secretary of defense and key people within NSA. So a conspiracy develops to discredit Hart and bring the best assets of CIA under the wing of NSA and the Department of Defense.

Only Bourne, considered by all to be unstable and damaged goods, can solve the various problems, but he’ll get no official help from anyone–and there are plenty of key players that want him dead yesterday. And that just may happen. The Black Legion has an assassin that is as bent, twisted, and effective as Bourne and is determined to eliminate him. All of this requires Bourne to rely on informal assets and secret friendships that he’s developed over the years to unravel the various conspiracies and keep himself alive until he can eliminate his nemesis.

Armchair Interviews says: Exciting, scary and of course, well done.