The Bourne Identity
Robert Ludlum, 1980
Shot off a trawler into a Mediterranean storm, a man surfaces with no memory — and a set of skills and enemies he cannot explain.
Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum's novels put ordinary-seeming men into situations where the ground keeps shifting: identities are uncertain, institutions can't be trusted, and the people chasing them often know more about them than they do. If you want a place to start, «The Bourne Identity» is the obvious one, a man pulled from the sea with no memory and a set of skills he can't account for; «The Matarese Circle» is a good second, two rival spies forced to work together when a conspiracy turns both their agencies against them.
Feels like power, memory and identity.
Start with The Bourne Identity.
Ludlum spent years acting and producing in the theatre before turning to thrillers in his forties; his first novels appeared under the pen names Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.
The uncanny peace that can arrive in the middle of drowning.
And there was heat, a strange moist heat at his temple that seared through the freezing water that kept swallowing him, a fire where no fire should burn. There was ice, too; an icelike throbbing in his stomach and his legs and his chest, oddly warmed by the cold sea around him. He felt these things, acknowledging his own panic as he felt them. He could see his own body turning and twisting, arms and feet working frantically against the pressures of the whirlpool. He could feel, think, see, perceive panic and struggle—yet strangely there was peace. It was the calm of the observer, the uninvolved observer, separated from the events, knowing of them but not essentially involved. Books by Robert Ludlum
The Matarese Circle
Robert Ludlum, 1979
Two rival spies are forced into an uneasy alliance when a shadowy conspiracy turns both their agencies against them.
The Parsifal Mosaic
Robert Ludlum, 1982
A CIA officer in Prague watches a woman he loves walk into a secret-police trap—and cannot decide whether she is a killer or a pawn.
The Aquitaine Progression
Robert Ludlum, 1981
In a world where corporate power intersects with global intrigue, a clever strategist finds that his most critical asset is the memory of a haunted past.
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