ROBERT LUDLUM'S THE BOURNE EVOLUTION

Novelist Freeman nails the Ludlum style in the latest Jason Bourne adventure.

Without apparent motive, a man with no known criminal history or mental illness opens fire on a Las Vegas crowd and slaughters 66 people. More than a year later, a New York congresswoman is murdered, shot in the neck. The congresswoman had been about to expose a large-scale data hacking scandal in big tech. The suspect is an “ex-government operative gone rogue” code-named Cain. That’s the hero, Jason Bourne. Fans know that as Cain, he was a professional assassin before a gunshot wound stole all memory of his past. Treadstone, his former organization, believes he’s out of control and wants him dead. Good luck with that, because “Bourne was a ghost. Impossible to kill.” So Bourne agrees to meet secretly with a journalist in Quebec City who has written about the Vegas killings and is investigating the congresswoman’s murder. Nothing goes right, of course. Later, Bourne agrees to find a connection between that killing and a mysterious organization called Medusa. What follows is plenty of well-plotted action of the bloodletting variety. The main threat to society is a software application called Prescix. People think it’s cool because it predicts what they’re going to do before they know it themselves. They don’t realize that it’s controlling what they’re going to do. That is plausible, scary stuff, but for a real scare meet the superb villain Miss Shirley. She warns people, “at all times when we are together to call me Miss Shirley.” That’s in every sentence, with violations punishable by a bullet in the throat, even if she’s just treated a guy to the best sex ever. The showdown between Bourne and Miss Shirley is one for the ages.

Freeman’s first Jason Bourne thriller is a treat for fans of the late Robert Ludlum.