Jason Bourne Books in Order: How to read Robert Ludlum’s book series in order?

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When we met Bourne in the 1980 spy fiction thriller by Robert Ludlum (Covert-One), he didn’t know who he was. He suffers from retrograde amnesia and must find out why the CIA wants him dead. That’s just the beginning for the most famous super spy since James Bond.

Jason Bourne’s adventure continues to this day as new authors took over the series years after the conclusion of the original trilogy. First, Eric Van Lustbader wrote almost a dozen new novels, then Brian Freeman took over. Also, in 2020, a new spin-off series by Joshua Hood was launched. Called Treadstone, those new books follow Adam Hayes, another Treadstone agent. And in 2022, a new series focusing on Blackbriar operatives written by Simon Gervais was launched.

How to read the Jason Bourne Series in Order?

I. The original Jason Bourne books by Robert Ludlum

For a long time, the Jason Bourne book series was just a trilogy by Robert Ludlum.

1. The Bourne Identity – His memory is a blank. His bullet-ridden body was fished from the Mediterranean Sea. His face has been altered by plastic surgery. A frame of microfilm has been surgically implanted in his hip. Even his name is a mystery. Marked for death, he is racing for survival through a bizarre world of murderous conspirators–led by Carlos, the world’s most dangerous assassin. Who is Jason Bourne?
2. The Bourne Supremacy – Someone else has taken on the Bourne identity–a ruthless killer who must be stopped or the world will pay a devastating price.
3. The Bourne Ultimatum – At a small-town carnival, two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre killing. The telegrams are signed “Jason Bourne.” Only they know Bourne’s true identity and understand that the telegrams are really a message from Bourne’s mortal enemy, Carlos. And furthermore, they know what the Jackal wants: a final confrontation with Bourne.

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II. The Jason Bourne novels by Van Lustbader

After Ludlum’s death and the success of the new movies, Eric Van Lustbader started to write a lot more books in the Jason Bourne series.

4. The Bourne Legacy – Out of the ashes of his violent past, Jason Bourne is living a quiet life–until he narrowly escapes the bullet of a faceless assassin. And when two of Bourne’s closest associates are murdered, he knows that his legacy has followed him–and set him up as the prime suspect for the brutal crimes.
5. The Bourne Betrayal – Already devastated by loss, Bourne is shattered by a report that his last friend in the world, Martin Lindros, has gone missing. He was in Ethiopia tracking suspicious shipments of yellowcake uranium and atomic bomb weaponry. His last lifeline to humanity, Bourne will not let Lindros go.
6. The Bourne Sanction – Aware of his frustrations, Jason Bourne’s academic mentor asks for help investigating the murder of a former student by a previously unknown Muslim extremist sect called the Black Legion. The young man died carrying information about the group’s terrorist activities, including an immediate plan to attack the United States.

7. The Bourne Deception – After Bourne is ambushed and nearly killed while in Indonesia, he fakes his death to take on a new identity and mission- to find out who is trying to assassinate him. In the process, Bourne begins to question who he really is and what he would become if he no longer carried the Bourne identity.
8. The Bourne Objective – Facing down mercenaries in Africa, Jason Bourne witnesses the death of an art dealer named Tracy Atherton. Her killing dredges up snatches of Bourne’s impaired memory, in particular the murder of a young woman on Bali who entrusted him with a strangely engraved ring­­. Now he’s determined to find the ring’s owner and purpose.
9. The Bourne Dominion – Jason Bourne is searching for an elusive cadre of terrorists planning to destroy America’s most strategic natural resources. He needs the help of his long-time friend, General Boris Karpov. But in order to remain the head of FSB-2, Karpov must hunt down and kill Bourne.

10. The Bourne Imperative – The man Jason Bourne fishes out the sea is near death, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound. He awakens with no memory of who he is or why he was shot.
11. The Bourne Retribution – Eli Yadin, head of Mossad, learns that Ouyang Jidan, a senior member of China’s Politburo, and a major Mexican drug lord may have been trafficking. Yadin needs Bourne to investigate.
12. The Bourne Ascendancy – Jason Bourne is faced with an impossible mission. He has been hired to impersonate a high-level government minister at a political summit meeting in Qatar. Suddenly, armed gunmen storm the room, killing everyone but Bourne. Their target isn’t the minister Bourne impersonates….it is Bourne himself.

13. The Bourne Enigma – On the eve of Russian general Boris Karpov’s wedding, Jason Bourne receives an enigmatic message from his old friend and fellow spymaster. A crippling disaster is about to be visited on the world. Bourne has only four days to discover the nature of the disaster and stop it.
14. The Bourne Initiative – General Boris Karpov is dead. Karpov trusted only one man: Jason Bourne. The U.S. Government is convinced of his treason and is doing everything in its power to kill him.

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III. The Jason Bourne novels by Brian Freeman

15. The Bourne Evolution – After the death of his lover in a mass shooting, secret agent Jason Bourne is convinced that there is more to her murder than it seems. Worse, he believes that Treadstone–the agency that made him who he is, that trained him–is behind the killing. Bourne goes rogue, leaving Treadstone behind and taking on a new mission to infiltrate and expose an anarchist group, Medusa.
16. The Bourne Treachery – Everything has changed for Bourne. He is a lone operative, working in the shadows for Treadstone, when he’s called in for a new mission in London–to prevent another assassination masterminded by Lennon. But nothing about this mission is what it seems. As Bourne engages in a cat-and-mouse game with Lennon across the British countryside, he discovers that everything he thought he knew about the past was a lie. And with the body count rising, he comes to an inevitable conclusion: Some secrets should stay buried.
17. The Bourne Sacrifice – Jason Bourne has faced many killers before, but none as dangerous or as cruelly inventive as the assassin who calls himself Lennon. Bourne thought he had Lennon cornered in Iceland, only to have the killer escape in a fiery explosion. Now Lennon’s trail leads Bourne to New York and then to Washington – and the body count rises with each deadly encounter.

18. The Bourne Defiance – From the glacial waters of Alaska to a sexy nightclub in the Bahamas, Treadstone agents are being hunted down and murdered. Someone high up in the U.S. government will stop at nothing to cover up a secret Treadstone mission from the past known as Defiance. With a team of killers hot on his trail, Jason Bourne chases the mystery of Defiance around the world. But as he closes in on the shocking truth, Bourne realizes that one man holds the key–his archenemy, the assassin known as Lennon. The Russian hitman has been at the heart of Defiance from the very beginning, and his next target will put Bourne -and the woman he loves-in the cross-hairs.
19. The Bourne Shadow – It’s been over a decade since Nash Rollins recruited a brilliant, talented, but disaffected young man named David Webb to join Treadstone. Webb became the agent known as Cain—and later took on the identity of Jason Bourne. But now, when Bourne meets a woman who recognizes him as David Webb, the secrets of those days begin to come out—and Bourne is forced to confront the dangerous ghosts of a past he doesn’t even remember.

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Reading The Treadstone Series in Order

A new series inspired by Robert Ludlum’s Bourne universe, The Treadstone series by Joshua Hood introduces a hero and the shadowy world that forged him… Treadstone made Jason Bourne an unstoppable force, but he’s not the only one.

1. Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Resurrection – Operation Treadstone has nearly ruined Adam Hayes. The top-secret CIA Black Ops program trained him to be an all but invincible assassin, but it also cost him his family and any chance at a normal life. Which is why he was determined to get out. Working as a carpenter in rural Washington state, Adam thinks he has left Treadstone in the past, until he receives a mysterious email from a former colleague, and soon after is attacked by an unknown hit team at his job site.
2. Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Exile – After the revival of Operation Treadstone, former agent Adam Hayes has retreated to Africa, determined to leave behind the black-ops CIA program behind for good. But his quiet life in Africa changes irrevocably, when, while attempting to complete a charitable mission in Burkina Faso, Hayes is attacked by extremists. Forced to make an unexpected landing, his plane is damaged and he is left in a hornet’s nest of trouble.
3. Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Transgression – The most pressing issue on Adam Hayes’ mind is planning his son’s upcoming 5th birthday party. After years of operating in the world’s most dangerous spots for Treadstone, he’s ready to call it quits, but the feeling isn’t mutual. Levi Shaw, Treadstone’s director, calls Hayes back for one more mission. But nothing is ever easy where Treadstone is concerned. When the mission is blown only Hayes is left alive, and everyone, it seems, is determined to correct that oversight.

4. Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Rendition – Adam Hayes has stepped away from the field for the last time. He’s promised his wife that he won’t put his life on the line anymore, and there’s nothing that will make him break a promise to his wife. Well…almost nothing. With America withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Taliban closing in, Abdul Nassir reached out to his old friend. He’s the only eyewitness to a massacre committed by a rogue team of CIA contractors. Not only can he identify the butcher who directed the bloodbath, he also has photographic proof. He’ll only be safe when those pictures are made public. Now, there’s just one man he can trust to get him to safety–Adam Hayes.

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Reading Robert Ludlum’s Blackbriar Books in Order

The assassination of a Treadstone agent leads two Blackbriar operatives down a rabbit hole of deceit and betrayal in this new series by Simon Gervais from the world of Robert Ludlum.

1. The Blackbriar Genesis – A car explodes along a quiet Prague side street-among the dead is an undercover Treadstone agent. It’s not unusual for such men to meet their fates on an operation, but in this case, there’s one catch. None of his superiors knew what he was doing there. Two Blackbriar operatives, Helen Jouvert, and Donovan Wade, are sent to investigate. Their search for answers will take them deeper into the world of conspiracy and fake news than they ever expected. Treadstone and Blackbriar may be two sides of the same coin, intelligence, and counterintelligence, but they have one thing in common, answers can be the deadliest commodity of all.
2. The Blackbriar Deceit – When three legendary retired American ambassadors are murdered within twenty-four hours of each other, Blackbriar operatives Donovan Wade and Helen Jouvert are tasked with finding the assassins. As Wade and Jouvert dig into each of the ambassadors’ pasts, they discover that the three well-liked diplomats weren’t as loyal to the United States as they had claimed to be. Contrary to popular belief, they had something else in common, something so shocking that it could tear the United Nations apart.