Product Description

It all starts with a cat-and-mouse chase to the death in a Baltimore funfair: the Jackal, Bourne's age-old antagonist, is back and Bourne is forced from his idyllic retirement with his wife and children to confront his enemy. In Europe, Russia and America there are men and women whose lust for power is disguised by their positions and respectability. Their aim: to gain control at the highest level, to avenge, to destroy. Jason Bourne has been the assassin before: now he longs for peace with his family, but the threat of the Jackal puts in jeopardy all possibility of peace ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8350 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 720 pages

Synopsis
It all starts with a cat-and-mouse chase to the death in a Baltimore funfair: the Jackal, Bourne's age-old antagonist, is back and Bourne is forced from his idyllic retirement with his wife and children to confront his enemy. In Europe, Russia and America there are men and women whose lust for power is disguised by their positions and respectability. Their aim: to gain control at the highest level, to avenge, to destroy. Jason Bourne has been the assassin before: now he longs for peace with his family, but the threat of the Jackal puts in jeopardy all possibility of peace ...

About the Author
After a successful career in the theatre, Robert Ludlum launched his career as a best-selling writer with THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE in 1971, the first of twenty-two consecutive international bestsellers. Robert sadly passed away in March 2001.

Customer Reviews

Bourne again...
The first book of the trilogy (Identity) is by far the best, and the associated films a disappointment with little to do with the books. This book is good if you enjoyed the first two books, and is a better read than the second. Medusa comes back to life in a new form, and the plots and twists take us to Paris to meet the Jackal, the States and islands to fight off the Mafia, plus most of Europe finally to Russia to the KGB and the "birthplace" of the Jackal. Conklin, Panov are very much part of the Webb family. If anything the story is a bit far fetched, but quite fun and a bit of a send up in a James Bond type style of latter films. The first book was much more worrying and realistic in terms of what the USA intelligence service could get up compared to this book which is more obviously in a fantasy world. I did enjoy it but would find it difficult to understand the background without reading the first novel. Worth reading if you have read the first two, and interest maintained through out the 700+ pages.

Disappointing plot, characters and ending - just won't do!
This was not a great book and at times I found it to be fairly tedious. The plot is an ideal example of the term "half baked".

I hate skipping passages but this book encouraged the practice. I think it is unnecessarily long and could have been edited, to both benefit the book and the reader, by at least a one third reduction. And a little more effort into some original plot pieces wouldn't go amiss while the editor was at it.

I also felt the author was "going through the motions" by squeezing a bit more out of his Jason Bourne character. A final showdown with "The Jackal" that became more than a little preposterous. It was predictable, drudgery and I just wanted it to end in the way we all knew it would - just for it to come quicker!

I must say that there were some interesting and likeable characters - I was taken by the ex-Deuxieme Bureau character in Paris and the KGB character that helped our hero in Moscow. However, to counter this observation, I could have cheerfully strangled the brother-in-law and I do not think there would be a short queue for the honour. What an annoying waste of space. Talking of which there were a number of characters introduced that really didn't seem to help the story.

I have read better books by this author and believe me this one took some time to read - all in all - I cannot recommend it, sorry.

Poorest of the series... but not to be missed
What can I say about this book??????

Mr Ludlum must have been really bored out of his mind when he sat down to write this, because just from reading it you can tell he never put his heart and soul into it like the two previous books.

Not to say it is a bad story (there are ALOT worse Robert Ludlum books out there!!!) but you know what is coming three pages before it happens.

Not as slow to read as Supremacy (took me 1/4 of the time to read), but not as thrilling as Identity.

Thankfully the movie will be NOTHING like this book!!!