In a Kowloon Cabaret, scrawled in a pool of blood, is a name the world wanted to forget: Jason Bourne.The Chinese vice-premier has been brutally slain by a legendary assassin. World leaders ask the same fearful questions: Why has Jason Bourne come back? Who is paying him? Who is the next to die? But U.S. officials know the shocking truth: There is no Jason Bourne. The name was created as cover for David Webb on his search for the notorious killer Carlos. Someone else has taken the Bourne identity--and unless he is stopped, the world will pay a devastating price. So Jason Bourne must live again. Once again, Webb must utilize his lethal skills--because once again, like a nightmare relived, the woman he loves is suddenly torn from his life. To find her, trap his own impostor, and uncover an explosive secret plan, Webb must lauch a desperate oddyssey into the espionage killing fields. But this time, survival will not be enough. This time Bourne must reign supreme.

Robert Ludlum was an American author of 25 thriller novels. There are more than 290 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.

Some of Ludlum's novels have been made into films and mini-series, including The Osterman Weekend, The Holcroft Covenant, The Apocalypse Watch, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. A non-Ludlum book supposedly inspired by his unused notes, Covert One: The Hades Factor, has also been made into a mini-series. The Bourne movies, starring Matt Damon in the title role, have been commercially and critically successful (The Bourne Ultimatum won three Academy Awards in 2008), although the story lines depart significantly from the source material.

Ludlum died in 2001 of a subdural hematoma.