If it weren't for the profanity and expletives splattered throughout, this trilogy (and the paperbacks) would have been five-star reads for me.

There were a few choppy transitions, due to its being an abridged version. I often found myself wanting to dig into the paperbacks again to get the full story. Only later did I see the fine print on the bottom of the back cover: 'These abridgments have been approved by the author.' Though I wish I would have discovered that information prior to purchasing this audio trilogy, I still enjoyed listening to it. I didn't realize this was an abridged version until I pulled out my paperbacks to follow along. The narrator, Darren McGavin, kept me interested and hooked as he was easy to listen to while he infused various voices and passion for his work into every line. The story lines are fascinating with great action, a smidge of a love story, and lots of twists and surprises.

That being said, they are intriguing in their own right. The adventures in this trilogy of books are completely different than those in their modern-day movie counterparts. 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. A non-Ludlum book supposedly inspired by his unused notes, Covert One: The Hades Factor, has also been made into a mini-series.

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. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series- The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum-among others. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller.

Author of the bourne series