On July 16th, 2024, Jason Bourne, one of the most recognizable names in the thriller genre today, returns to bookstores in Brian Freeman’s Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Shadow.
Even people who don’t read books know the name Jason Bourne. That is, of course, because Bourne was first brought to life on the big screen by Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon back in 2002 when The Bourne Identity first hit theatres. Since then, Damon has gone on to portray Ludlum’s iconic character three more times, including the 2016 film, which was just tiled Jason Bourne. But long before Damon was bringing new life to the character, mega-bestselling author Robert Ludlum was churning out books set around the government asset’s life on the run.
First introduced in the 1980 book The Bourne Identity (which differed pretty significantly from the movie), Ludlum stuck with his hero for three books before switching gears after The Bourne Ultimatum was released in 1990. Fourteen years later, in 2004, author Eric Van Lustbader took over the mantle, penning his first Bourne continuation novel, The Bourne Legacy, and kept cranking them out until 2017. Altogether, Lustbader wrote eleven Bourne novels. Then, in 2020, New York Times bestselling author Brian Freeman took over the series and published The Bourne Evolution, a reboot of sorts that re-established the timeline in Bourne’s universe. Since then, Freeman has written five novels, including Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Defiance (2023).
Shadow is his fifth entry in the series, and Book Spy readers can see all the plot details, along with the cover art, below.
It’s been over a decade since Nash Rollins recruited a brilliant, talented, but disaffected young man named David Webb to join Treadstone. Webb became the agent known as Cain—and later took on the identity of Jason Bourne.
That violent winter—which included Cain’s first mission for Treadstone—was also a story of betrayal in ways that David never knew. So after the injury that erased Bourne’s whole life, Nash lied about the circumstances of David’s recruitment to Treadstone. He was afraid that learning the truth might drive Bourne out of the agency forever.
But now, when Bourne meets a woman who recognizes him as David Webb, the secrets of those days begin to come out—and Bourne is forced to confront the dangerous ghosts of a past he doesn’t even remember.
Brian Freeman is the bestselling author of over twenty five novels, including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series. His Audible original, The Deep, Deep Snow, hit the New York Times audio bestseller list. His novels have won the International Thriller Writers Award and the Macavity Award and been finalists for the Gold Dagger, Edgar, Anthony, and Barry awards.
Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 300 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He was the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series—among Aother novels. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.
Readers looking to pre-order the next Jason Bourne adventure can now do so here or anywhere else books are sold.
