The Bourne Identity

The Bourne Identity is a spy thriller by the American writer Robert Ludlum, published in 1980. It is the first book in the Bourne trilogy, continued in The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.

A man is pulled from the sea near Marseille with gunshot wounds and no memory of his life. The doctor who treats him finds a numbered Swiss bank account under his skin, and following that number to Zurich begins the process of finding out who he is.

The name he turns out to be carrying is Jason Bourne, and the man who used it was a deep-cover agent. Several parties want him dead, among them a professional assassin and parts of the intelligence services, and he has to piece together his own past while staying ahead of them.

Ludlum wrote the book as a spy novel about identity as much as escape, and it was adapted for television in 1988 and for film in 2002. It is a self-contained story within the trilogy that follows it.