Literary Pick of the Week: ‘The Bourne Sacrifice’

Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press
·2 min read
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” ‘Today, they call themselves the Pyramid,’ Chancellor went on. ‘But make no mistake. Their goals are the same; to take control where they see a failure of political leadership. They have the same hubris as the original members of Inver Brass – the hubris of powerful people everywhere – that they know better than everyone else. They think they can save democracy – ironically by dictating what they want people to believe. And they are every bit as ruthless about the ends justify their means.’ “

Minnesotan Brian Freeman’s fourth Jason Bourne thriller, “The Bourne Sacrifice,” couldn’t be more timely. As the quote above shows, at its heart, the novel is about who controls the political narrative, and who wants to manipulate people into believing a message. Whose message is good, and whose is bad? It’s also about hubris that makes organizations believe their thinking is right so everyone else must believe them.

The Jason Bourne series, originated by Robert Ludlum, features a man who admits he’s a killer, but he doesn’t remember anything about his background although he knows he was trained by a secret government organization known as Treadstone.

After Ludlum’s death in 2001, the franchise was passed to Eric Van Lustbader, who continued the series with 11 books. Freeman took over in 2020 with “The Bourne Evolution” at the invitation of Ludlum’s family.

When that book came out, Freeman said he wanted to go back to Ludlum’s original vision for Bourne, capturing the fundamental aspects of the man as a hero who is injured and loses his identity with no sense of what kind of person he is, killer or moral man. That ambiguity, he says, drives the character.

In the new book, Jason is once again up against Lennon, a cold-blooded killer who knows something about Bourne’s past he won’t reveal. Jason almost caught him in Iceland in the previous book, but he escaped in a fiery explosion.

When a young German woman is murdered in Washington, her identity turns out to be a lie and Bourne believes her assassin works for a shadowy organization called the Pyramid, which hides its identity behind a respectable research facility.

By coincidence, Jason discovers the woman he left in Iceland for her own protection, journalist Ashley Laurent, is working the same story. Although Jason knows he puts her in danger, he can’t help showing his feelings for her. He admits several times he is a dangerous man and he uses his skills to stop bad guys from harming Ashley and a woman who turns on the Pyramid when she learns the truth about what they are doing. Ashley knows what Jason does for a living but she doesn’t care and is a smart, brave partner for Jason, as well as his lover.

There is violence in this book, which won’t surprise Bourne fans, including assassinations, broken bones, gunshot wounds. Bourne doesn’t know who he can trust, and the pace never slows as Jason and Ashley travel from Washington to Germany, trying to unmask the handful of powerful men behind the Pyramid.

  • Freeman will sign copies of “The Bourne Sacrifice” (Putnam’s, $28), from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, July 30, at Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th St., Minneapolis.

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