Started: August 12, 2023 | Finished: August 19, 2023
The Bourne Supremacy
D'Anjou from the "The Bourne Identity", escaping from France, moves to Southeast Asia. To earn money, he decides to recreate the legend of Jason Bourne by tapping and training a disgraced British commando who also happens to be a psychopath. Things don't go as planned, and D'Anjou's operative goes rogue - breaking from D'Anjou and taking on contracts independently.
Some of these contracts are with a powerful leader of China, known as Sheng, who, in reality, is a Taiwanese infiltrator. Sheng has plans that alarm the Americans an the British, plans that could plunge the Far East into war.
In order to stop Sheng, a course of action is decided that involves the capture of this rogue assassin, this fake Jason Bourne. It is also decided that the only owne who can succeed would be the real Jason Bourne.
The problem is that David Webb is currently living a peaceful life as a professor in the U.S. There is no way he would accept this assignment. So the government decides to kidnap Marie in order to force him to do it.
The rest of the book is set in Hong Kong, Macau, and China. During the course of a thrilling hunt the real Jason Bourne proves himself more than the equal of the impostor. He also becomes convinced that the threat of Sheng is real and must be dealt with.
Do you know who David Webb/Jason Bourne reminds me of? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. David is the nice conscientious guy, Bourne is the deadly and efficient assassin. This book -more than the first one- highlights this dual nature. Yes, David Webb, does not like his alter ego, but there are many, many instances in "The Bourne Supremacy" in which David Webb would never have survived if he hadn't "transformed" into Jason Bourne.
Robert Ludlum's writing in this book does not feel as lean as his writing in "The Bourne Identity". I suspect that he was going for a more "literary" approach in his writing style for "The Bourne Supremacy". The effect is that this book feels like a slower read, a denser read. The truth is that it took several chapters for this book to take hold of me but the momentum does build up and the final chapters are very, very, engrossing.
The first book' seeting was France, Switzerland, and the United States. In "The Bourne Supremacy", Ludlum, takes us to a very different setting with Jason Bourne travelling between Hong Kong, Macau, and the Chinese Mainland. I think the different "flavor" of the setting, so successfully conveyed, really added to the enjoyment of the book.
This book also manages to highlight Jason Bourne's effectivity as a jungle fighter - something that was only touched upon in the first book. If you've wanted to see more of how deadly Jason Bourne really is, Ludlum really showcases that here by pitting his hero against a younger and physically stronger assassin - the impostor or "fake" Jason Bourne..
This is a strong sequel to the first book and makes me interested to read the last book in Ludlum's Bourne trilogy.