by Brian Freeman

Head of Zeus, out now

Jason Bourne is wanted for the murder of an American politician – but he’s on the trail of the real killers.

Brian Freeman succeeds Eric von Lustbader as the official chronicler of Jason Bourne’s exploits, after 11 books that followed on from Robert Ludlum’s original trilogy. It’s quite a shock to go back to that original novel now and realise that Jason was pitted against Carlos the Jackal forty years ago – yet to stay young, the Jason of this novel was a youngster when 9/11 happened. It’s a similar conceit to the continuation novels for the James Bond franchise – at least up to the end of Raymond Benson’s tenure – with subtle and suitable updating.

Head of Zeus published a Bourne spin-off, The Treadstone Resurrection, a few weeks back, and there appears to be a degree of crossover between these two lines (characters mention a resurrection for Treadstone, rather unsubtly at times). You don’t need to know the von Lustbader chronology for this to work – any back references are explained so it doesn’t matter if they’re new additions or callbacks – and Freeman has drawn his characterisation from Ludlum’s original, with Jason unwilling to involve an innocent, particularly given what happened to his own love.

The geopolitics are well-drawn, with the villains of the piece connected to technology, but there’s a particular evil lady at the heart of the conspiracy – Miss Shirley (and if you forget the honorific, well… you’ll just go to pieces!). She feels like an R/18-rated version of Xenia Onatopp from Pierce Brosnan’s first movie, GoldenEye – a dominatrix for whom her subjects will do anything. The confrontation between her and Bourne is clearly coming as the book progresses, and doesn’t disappoint when it does.

Does this mark the start of a renaissance for the Bourne / Treadstone series? Freeman has the plotting and characterisation skills to pull it off, and the action sequences are very well done. If no more follow, though, this is a good capstone to the series.

Verdict: A fresh adventure for Jason Bourne that ticks all the boxes for an enjoyable action read. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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