Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Objective

By: Eric Van Lustbader

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author, Eric Van Lustbader, returns with another Jason Bourne thriller as he spars off against another deadly agent - and he might be the perfect match for Bourne. Facing down mercenaries in Africa, Jason Bourne witnesses the death of an art dealer named Tracy Atherton. Her killing dredges up snatches of Bourne's impaired memory, in particular the murder of a young woman on Bali who entrusted him with a strangely engraved ring-an artifact of such powerful significance that people have killed to obtain it. Now he's determined to find the ring's owner and purpose.

But Bourne never knows what terrible acts he'll discover he committed when he digs into the past. The trail will lead him through layers of conspiracy to a vicious Russian mercenary, Leonid Arkadin, who was also a graduate of the Central Intelligence training program Treadstone. A covert course designed to create ruthless assassins for CI, it was shuttered by Congress for corruption. Yet before it was dismantled, it produced Bourne and Arkadin, giving them equal skills, equal force, and equal cunning.

As Bourne's destiny circles closer to Arkadin's, it becomes clear that the eventual collision of these men is not of their own making. Someone else has been watching and manipulating them. Someone who wants to know, Who is the more deadly agent?

Take another thrill ride with Jason Bourne.

©2010 Eric Van Lustbader (P)2010 Hachette

The Bourne Inanity

Silly sound effects and inappropriate background music and a narrative so convoluted you need GPS to find out where you are in the story. Pure torture. Just might be the worst audio book I've ever listened to . . .

Very hard to follow.

It didn't flow well for me. Too many characters and too much jumping around.

Listen to one of the originals

While I am sure that Mr. Van Lustbader suffers from comparison to the original author, this book was simply not a Bourne novel. The story was a bad mix of Clive Clusser and Dan Brown. If you want to read about lost gold or secret societies, I would recommend those authors because they are much better at it. What next for Bourne; a tangle with mystic aliens?

Page Turner but Disappointing Story

The book will keep you interested but barely; for sure my least favorite Bourne novel...

Van Lustbader ruined what could've been great

The overall story line is interesting, it was kind of a mix of Dan Brown's novels, with Indiana Jones, and the Bourne series. However, the Author added way too many characters that didn't add much value to the story. Plus all the Russian people had last names sounding almost the same. I believe every Russian's name ended with an "ov". Plus, adding the whole Russian storyline really didn't add much value. If the author wanted, he could've excluded that all together. I also think the whole Dan Brown thing is sort of cool, but that's not Jason Bourne's world. Temples, magic/alchemy, secret crazy temples with traps, illusions, common! The author went overboard. I'm on a 5 week vacation in Europe, and have been driving, so it has given me something to do, but as far as writing and story, I think my 2 stars is pretty generous.

The Narration is very good though. I bet this guy could pull off a one man play. Too bad the author played a one man joke of a book.

Terrible book!

Buyer beware! The book was so complicated and so difficult to follow. Finally I gave up trying.

Confusing and Convoluted

This is the first Ludlum novel I have ever quit midway through the book. The characters were impossible to keep straight. The story line was scattered all over the place and the narration was mediocre at best. Very disappointing.

Put Jason Out of His Misery

I loved the Ludlum books and the Jason Bourne character. But it's gone too far. Locked in a car with this and my iPod, craving the sound of the reader's voice, I switched to music to put this to an end. I came back, tried again. The characters are muddled, Jason can't think straight...I'm sick of thinking "duh, dude, don't you remember?" yet again. Then miracle of miracles he manages to somehow remember what he needs to know. Let Jason go home; the first book ended the way it should have frankly.

What happened here??

This book was a real disappointment- I'm a huge bourne fan, yet this book is muddled in plot twists, improbable character allegiances developed only over a few hours of meeting each other and just overall, too much randomness. The characters are plastic, their motives thin and non-developed. Dont waste 12 hours of your life on this one..

Disappointment

I've read all of the Bourne books. This one was a terrible disappointment. It would be even worse if you hadn't read any of the others, as their is little character development. Scott Sowers reading is OK except for his horrible Mexican accent. There were times when I thought he was doing one of the Russian characters when it was supposed to be one of the Mexicans. Time for Eric Van Lustbader to give up the franchise and get back to his own work.