I found this very enjoyable and well written and paced. My only problem was the relationship between Bourne and Marie, which is built mostly on his interrupting her rape from one of the bad guys. I don’t think it was handled all that well and I flip flop as to if their love, with that scaffolding was believable or not. On the one hand I like that she’s not a typical written victim but on the other basically no weight is given to it, which makes it feel strange. Eventually there are many more moments that give their relationship more credence. But it kind of felt like it was hand waved simply because she was extremely intelligent and analytical.

I actually liked that she would call Bourne out on things frequently, showing that his confirmation bias was driving his conclusions. The dynamic worked well because it explores his past trauma, and centres it frequently. The training versus the man are liminal and nicely coupled with the larger plot. It’s much more complex and rich, and featured way more trade craft and more factions than I expected.

I was warned that it was much more slow and I think it altered my expectations enough. I could see how if you expected the movie you’d be disappointed. Ones an action movie with spy fiction trappings while this is full fledged spy fiction. I actually thought it moved along at a good pace and developed characters more than the other books do in the genre. It actually has something interesting to say about what the government does to operatives trained in a far more nuanced way that isn’t boiled down like in the movie.

As I said before, pretty much my only problem was the initial relationship development. But Marie is a much more fleshed out and better character in the book, I found. I suspect some of that is down to when it was written, possibly. I also listened on the audiobook and the narrator was great (same guy who narrated Jurassic Park, I think.) sometimes listening this way really highlights the cadence and flow of the author. Really like the authorial voice in this one. And while the action is far less, I liked how they were written; felt much like the action in the movie.