Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Retribution

By: Eric Van Lustbader

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Jason Bourne has been pursued by powerful governments - and escaped, hunted by the most skilled assassins in the world - and outsmarted them, and targeted by terrorists - and defeated their plans for global chaos, but now, Bourne wants only one thing: Retribution.

Bourne's friend Eli Yadin, head of Mossad, learns that Ouyang Jidan, a senior member of China's Politburo, and a major Mexican drug lord may have been trafficking in something far more deadly than drugs. Yadin needs Bourne to investigate. Bourne agrees, but only because he has a personal agenda: Ouyang Jidan is the man who ordered Rebeka - one of the only people Bourne has ever truly cared about - murdered. Bourne is determined to avenge her death, but in the process he becomes enmeshed in a monstrous world-wide scheme involving the Chinese, Mexicans, and Russians.

Bourne's increasingly desperate search for Ouyang takes him from Tel Aviv to Shanghai, Mexico City, and, ultimately, a village on China's coast where a clever trap has been laid for him. Bourne finds himself pursued on all sides and unsure whom he can trust. As he moves closer to Ouyang, closer to avenging the woman he loved, he also moves ever closer to his own death...

©2013 Eric Van Lustbader (P)2013 Hachette Audio

Just a fan from the first book

It’s just an overall great series. But you need to start from the beginning. That will help things make since in my opinion.

Great book in the series

This had a great storyline and was very well read. Nicely done all the way around!

Unlistenable for these old ears

I did persevere - while not my favorite Von Lustbader story, the story is OK. However, the narrator's attempts to portray gender and accent, in addition to being distractingly cartoonish, had me chasing volume up and down as I attempted to mitigate the diminishing volume and sound quality as the narrator attempted his unnecessary portrayal of gender and ethnicity.

Yes, I was using my best hearing aid and all of the sound conditioning my Galaxy could muster - unnecessarily unlistenable.

Finally Bourne with a good storyline.

Except for a bit of confusion with Chinese names this is a much better novel than the last two. I waited to read this one pursuant to the last two disappointments . I'm looking forward to the next Bourne installment. This plot was typically Lustbader. He simplifies the plot, twists turns chases and hand to hand combat we expect. Mixing Israel, China, Mexico and Russia was quite the refreshing quartet to balance. Without giving the plot away this is the best Bourne since "Legacy". I'm cautiously excited the next book coming out on June 10th.

The narrator hit all the accents but crashed and burned on Bourne. He made him sound plain and uninteresting. He has to work to make Bourne tougher!

I can only hope the story continues!

Would you consider the audio edition of Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Retribution to be better than the print version?

I typically only listen to audio books so I did not read the print version.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

The worst part of this book is that I can't listen to it straight through. I get 45 minutes to maybe an hour long on the ride to work, and periodically during some down time.

Any additional comments?

This book was so easy to picture as another blockbuster movie. So many spy novels try to live up to this series, and only Daniel Silva and maybe Vince Flynn can contend with.

Very entertaining! A good storyline & performance

I enjoyed a good tale with many twists and turns of a good Jason Bourne yarn.

Good Story, Bad Narration

What did you like best about Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Retribution? What did you like least?

Fast paced, good action. Some unbelievable plot twists.

What did you like best about this story?

Continued where the last book left off.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Absolutely ruined the book. It's not that he is a bad narrator, it's that he tried to do multiple voices leaving all his women (... and some of his men) sounding like they were Tex-mex, even if they where Asian! His other voice sounds like Marlon Brando in the Godfather, which may be fine for one character, but he applies this voice to many different characters. His natural voice, which he used almost exclusively on Bourne, was actually very good. If he would have just read the book instead of trying to do multiple voices I would have rated the book 4/5.

Narrator has 2 accents: Marlon Brando & American

What did you like best about Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Retribution? What did you like least?

The story seems pretty good. There is action and some suspense. There are some odd plot choices such as when the protagonist claims being low profile is paramount, and immediately thereafter intentionally initiates a massive city wide car chase in a stolen car leaving many causalities in his wake. Not sure how that is low profile.

As others have mentioned, the narration is terrible. The narrator has two accents at his disposal American and Marlon Brando's godfather. All non-Americans sound like the GodFather (including the women). It so bad that it can be difficult to understand which character is speaking since they all sound like an out-of-breath Godfather.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narration is great so long as you like the idea of all the non-English speaking characters sounding like Marlon Brando's Godfather. This includes women. Its hard not cringe when you hear a female character speaking with what sounds like Marlon Brando doing a Chinese accent. Other than that the narration is spot-on.

The worst Bourne story

So disconnected, the plot line is an abomination to the legacy of Bourne novels.
Disappointing at best.

Great story, terrible choice for a narrator.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Have always loved Ludlum novels, especially the Bourne series. However, a great story was ruined by changing to a new narrator that, frankly, sounds like a young college kid. Had to bail out on the audio book and read it myself.