THE BOURNE IDENTITY

Widely considered to be among the top spy thrillers ever, this is the first of Ludlum's exciting Bourne trilogy. Written in 1980, it has some amusingly dated details—the spies desperately searching for pay phones in the heat of a chase, for example—but it definitely stands the test of time. Scott Brick upholds his reputation as a master voice of spy thrillers. Brick portrays Jason Bourne's growing confusion and anger as he awakens from a coma to complete amnesia. A bank account number engraved on a microscopic chip embedded in his hip leads him to Zurich, where people try to kill him. Brick portrays Bourne with steely determination and scarcely hidden astonishment as secrets unlock in his brain, and he realizes the terrible truth about his identity. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2009]