The Bourne Retribution

February 24, 2014
Narrator Graham turns in a fine performance in this audio edition of Lustbader’s latest installment in the Jason Bourne series. Bourne is still mourning the death of Mossad agent Rebeka, one of the only people he ever cared about, when he takes on an assignment to investigate the connection between a Mexican drug cartel and Ouyang Jidan, a senior member of China’s Politburo, who also happens to have ordered Rebeka’s murder. Bourne sets out for revenge, but it is a long, deadly path toward retribution. With a sharp edge to his voice, Graham easily delivers the breathless action fans have come to expect from this series. The narrator just as easily handles the book’s large multinational cast of characters, presenting dialogue clearly and giving each character an appropriate voice and distinctive accent. However, the voice Graham lends Bourne sometimes sounds more like a petulant young man than seasoned superspy. Still, the locations are exotic, the narrow escapes exciting, and the winding plot twists compelling—and fans will certainly enjoy the ride. A Grand Central hardcover.

March 3, 2014
Lustbader's eighth thriller continuing the Ludlum franchise (after 2012's The Bourne Imperative) is burdened with groan-inspiring prose ("she arched her back, her heavy breasts crowned with dark nipples rising out of the water like questing sea creatures") and implausible action sequences, even by the series' low standards. Jason Bourne is heartbroken over the death of his latest amour, and is now working with Israeli intelligence. But his assignment to safeguard a senior Mossad official on a visit to Mexico is botched, and he's propelled into mind-numbing intrigue involving not only narcotics traffickers but rival Chinese factions. Sloppy errors, such as misusing the Hebrew word aliya as a synonym for penance, further defeat efforts to make all of this seem real. Whatever was original in Ludlum's initial conception of an amnesiac superagent in his trilogy has long been lost in a welter of clichés, with the worst saved for last.