BOURNE

Evening all. My book reviews will consist four parts;
1. Vague summary of the book.
2. The Plot.
3. My Verdict.
4. My rating; on a scale of bloody-awesome to fucking-awful.
Here goes:
SUMMARY:
The book of discourse today is BOURNE IDENTITY -- the first installment in the original installment of a trilogy (its been continued by a number of authors since Robert Ludlum's demise). The Bourne Identity is a 1980 spy-fiction-thriller resplendent in action packed, espionage-filled themes that tells the tale of a certain Jason Bourne; a chronic amnesiac with no recollection of his person and no vestige of his past, save for a microfilm (this was 1980, remember?!!) and a Swiss bank account holding a cool $5m.
As Mr Robert Ludlum is wont to do, he takes the reader into a very energetic, highly charged amorphous world of a complex man whose psychobiological configuration is so different to the everyday man it almost belies credulity. Almost.

PLOT:  
The preface contains two 1975 'real life' write-ups about Sanchez Ilich Ramirez ominously dubbed 'Carlos the Jackal'.
  In a world infinitely more chaotic than mine, a man is fished out of the Mediterranean sea in Marseilles where a degenerate doctor stitches him up and he wakes without any solid recollection of his previous life. Only clue he has is a microfilm which leads him to Zurich where several attempts are made on his life. He escapes, survives and instinctively adapts to goings-on around and about him. In a bid to piece together his fragmented life, circumstances lead him from Marseilles to Zurich to Paris where he meets and befriends a Canadian economist in an obligatory love twist to the story.
Bourne has spasmodic recollections of a turbulent past. He speaks several Mandarin dialects and is so well versed in disguise, combat and weapons of all sorts he would put Jack Bauer to shame.   He (and his increasingly prominent girlfriend) must escape death traps from both the CIA and a ruthless assassin (Carlos) who possesses a super network of highly motivated comrades -- while he tries to make sense of his life.
MY VERDICT:
By now, everyone must have seen a movie or read a book about the many covert operations of the CIA the world over. If you haven't, this is a good place to start. In my honest opinion, The Bourne Identity gives the reader a firsthand knowledge of what goes on in the dark labyrinthine world of a spy and the life and death decisions he has to make on a daily basis.
Mr Ludlum does a brilliant job of describing the combats, the weapons and the characters are a complex bunch.
If you are not a fan of conspiracies, you'll find the book a little tedious and curse Cue for not warning you about a boring read.
If on the other hand you love spy stuff, you'll love this one. Amidst all those spy-yey guff, there are some hardcore lessons applicable in the nonfictional world.
The book offers a course in bribery, concentration, focus, resilience and animalistic desire to survive through some quality epithets. Do yourself a favour, and read a copy.
CUE's RATING:
BLOODY AWESOME.

There you have it. Now I'm hungry. Have yourselves a bloody good rest of the week.

--->>>Cue (bookish fiend)