the    sides

I thought I stray over into some fiction this time around. I almost wish I hadn’t. Eric Van Lustbader tries to pick up where Robert Ludlum left off and while he doesn’t do a terrible job…it’s not a great one either. Ever seen a great movie that did so much better than anyone could have thought so they decided to make more without really thinking through it? This is the book form.

We find David Webb/Jason Bourne teaching at Georgetown University. He’s married, got a couple of kids but we never see them during this story. An attempt is made on the life of David Webb which launches Jason Bourne back to the forefront and what ensues is an around the world jaunt to find the terrorists who’ve made this super weapon of mass destruction.

What made the Bourne trilogy so appealing was that he wasn’t James Bond. He’s not going to get the girl because he doesn’t really know who he is and we are on the journey with him. There may be some devilish bad guy who is set on ruling the world but that’s not Bourne’s problem to solve. He is his problem to solve. And most of the time what he finds, he doesn’t like. Neither do we but at least we feel the conflict of that with the character and we get to watch him make sense of it and resolve it. We like the story because we see a character who doesn’t like who he has become and he’s desperately trying to change that.

The other thing was even though the escapades and action sequences were incredible - they were at least in the realm of possible.

This book never seems to capture that. It’s not a bad book. It’s just reads more like James Bond than Jason Bourne.

Overall, a decent book but not great. 2.5 out 5 stars.