With Robert Ludlum's death, best selling author Eric Van Lustbader has been recruited to continue the Jason Bourne saga. In The Bourne Legacy, Van Lustbader has written a serviceable entry in this series. Bourne (a.k.a David Webb), a professor at Georgetown University, is accused of murdering his CIA connection, Alex Conklin, along with his psychiatrist and friend, Mo Panov. Bourne quickly goes on the run. If it isn't enough having the CIA and the rest of the world's intelligence agencies hunting for him, Bourne is also being pursued by an assassin named Khan, who claims to be Bourne's son, and who is seeking revenge on the father who he believes deserted him. Finally, there is an international summit in Iceland, at which terrorists are planning to kill the world's leaders.

This espionage romp is a bit of a dog's breakfast. Geographically, it goes from Chechnya to Washington, on to Paris, Budapest, Crete and Iceland, mixing, as it goes: exciting chase scenes; a new gruesome weapon of mass destruction; scenes of hideous torture; and location descriptions that sound like they are copied straight from guidebooks. Readers who distain violence in books might be put off by the torture scenes, one of which is especially painful. The language is often overblown, and those who prefer straight narrative might find themselves skipping whole chunks of interminable interior monologues. On the positive side the plot zooms along with twists and turns enough for a handful of thrillers.

Most fans of the Bourne books should enjoy this one; those new to the series may feel, at times, that they have come in in the middle of the story.