The Last Man, by Vince Flynn

Readers of The Reading Glutton have heard me gush about Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp novels.  Mitch Rapp is a hard-core agent, the kind of agent Jack Bauer tries to be, and the kind of man you definitely want to have on your side.  As we read in Flynn's newest Rapp novel, The Last Man, Mitch Rapp is the last man you want to come after you if he's not on your side!

Flynn's two prior novels, American Assassin and Kill Shot, took readers back to the Rapp's roots, setting up the background for Rapp's career and solidifying the reputation he comes into in the first novel (third chronologically), Transfer of Power.  The Last Man takes place at the end of the series, following Pursuit of Honor.  Not only does it bring us up to date with Rapp, it brings us right up to date with today's headlines.

Rapp is called in to assist with the investigation of the disappearance of a deep-cover operative in Afghanistan.  His disappearance gets the attention of the CIA due to their fear that, if the secrets in this one agent's head were revealed, many agents in the field would be compromised.  The whole thing seems fishy to Rapp from the start, and as he continues his investigation, he is targeted by an assassin and gets in the middle of an intragovernmental mess.  But true to what we know of Rapp, he overcomes injuries and setbacks and doggedly pursues truth and justice.

Flynn doesn't disappoint with his detailed fighting action, believable political intrigue, and plot twists to keep the reader guessing.  I can relate to Rapp's intolerance for terrorist coddling, and his frustration with bureaucratic garbage.  Sure, he makes rash decisions, but he's always right in the end.

Fans of Mitch Rapp will be delighted by The Last Man.  Readers who have never read Flynn's books will love it and will want to go back to the beginning to read them all.  All will wish and hope that the USA has someone like Rapp to call on when we need him.



Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Kill Shot, by Vince Flynn

If I had lost a loved one on 9/11 or some other terrorist attack, I would love Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp character.  After losing his girlfriend in the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing, Rapp's life takes a turn toward revenge.  In last year's American Assassin, Rapp goes through his training in an elite, off-the-books hit squad, and takes part in his first mission.  In Flynn's latest, Kill Shot, Rapp continues to knock off the terrorists on his list, exacting revenge with every kill.

Mitch Rapp is a figment of Vince Flynn's imagination.

Rapp's victim is the Libyan oil minister, a key player in terrorist circles.  He enters the minister's hotel suite, gets a clean kill, but then is ambushed by a hit squad.  Realizing he's walked into a trap, he takes out four of the gunmen and escapes; the gunmen's leader survives.  Knowing that somehow he's been betrayed by someone in his inner circle, he strikes out on his own, refusing to follow protocol and check in with his handlers.  His enemies in the unit decide he's gone rogue and that Rapp needs to be taken out, leading to a confrontation which not everyone will survive.

True to form, Flynn has written a tight, fast-paced thriller, using an economy of words and just enough suspense to make you want to keep reading to the end.  In my case, listening to the book on CD, I frequently had to force myself to turn off the car, putting of the story until my next car trip.

It's easy to cheer for Rapp.  He's driven by a pure desire for revenge, and gets his revenge through cold-blooded, calculated killing.  I was reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger's line in True Lies, when his wife, finding out for the first time that he's a secret agent, asks if he's ever killed anyone. "Yeah, but they were all bad."  Rapp only kills the bad guys.  In fact, he's torn up with guilt when he is indirectly responsible for the death of an innocent man.  But for all the ostensibly justified killing, I'm forced to think about the kind of worldview in which targeted assassination is the norm.  In Flynn's world, Rapp is a one-man Seal Team 6, taking out the terrorists before they can plot any more attacks on innocent targets.  In the real world, I'm not comfortable with a code of revenge.

Moral quandaries aside, Flynn's books make for an exciting read.  Movies are in the works, too; I'll line up for a ticket.

Pursuit of Honor, by Vince Flynn

In Extreme Measures, Mitch Rapp and his partner Mike Nash come under fire for their unorthodox and perhaps illegal means of extracting information from a group of terrorists--in other words, torturing them. They still fail to prevent a terrorist attack on Washington, D.C., but they do manage to save hundreds of lives with their quick thinking and quick triggers. The book ends with the debris smoking and some of the masterminds of the attack on the run.

Pursuit of Honor finds Rapp hot on the trail of the terrorists. The president has given him the green light to go after them, and former foes in the halls of power are coming over to his side. Pursuit, less action-heavy than some of the books in the Rapp series, showcases the cerebral side of Mitch Rapp. No question he still leaves a trail of writhing bodies if people get in his way, but more importantly, he tracks down leads and puts pieces of the puzzle together to bring the terrorists to justice.

More than I can remember in the other books in this series, Flynn spends more time with the terrorists themselves. The reader sees their conflicts between one another, their internal struggles with the whole idea of the jihad, and, almost, a touch of sympathy and humanity. Flynn never compromises by taking the side of the terrorists, but he does let us see the terrorists' actions from their own perspective.

We also see into the mind and background of Rapp. For a series that has gone on for 10 books now, Flynn keeps building Rapp's background, keeping it fresh. (One note that the Rapp fan will appreciate: Marcus, the CIA computer wiz, appears in most, if not all, of these novels. There were several in a row in which, when Flynn first introduced Marcus, it seemed as if Flynn used cut and paste, putting the exact same text in each book. Thankfully, he managed to include Marcus in Pursuit without the cut and paste addition.) Rapp is probably not someone I would want to hang out with. He would probably think I am a wimp and a loser, although since he was a highly competitive triathlete, he might grant me some grudging respect for being an ultramarathoner. Personalities aside, he is the kind of man I wish we had on the hunt for Bin Laden and his ilk.  Maybe we do; if the real CIA is as good at covering its tracks and running black ops as Flynn's fictional CIA, there's a lot going on in counter-terrorism that noone ever hears about.

I mentioned in my review of Protect and Defend that Rapp was much like Jack Bauer of the TV show 24.  They both passionately chase the bad guys, don't hesitate to knock heads, use "extreme measures" (torture) to get information from captives, or even put a bullet in the head of a terrorist.  Neither has any patience for bureaucratic barriers to justice, and both tend to act on their own, asking forgiveness later rather than permission before.  But neither Rapp nor Bauer need to ask forgiveness, since things always seem to work out for them.

Rapp, more concerned with what is moral than what is legal, has an enlightening exchange with a nemesis of his in the Senate.  At a closed hearing, the liberal, female senator chairing the hearing, confronts him with accusations of torturing a suspect.  (The suspect, a confirmed participant in the terrorist bombings, was reluctant to give up information about the ongoing activities of his colleagues.)  Leaving all decorum aside, Rapp confronted the senator with the contrast between her active advocacy of the right to partial-birth abortion and her desire to protect the rights of a known killer.  What is more moral, to stick a tube in the skull of an unborn child and suck out her brains, or to slap around a known terrorist to save countless American lives? 

This kind of conservative ideology does inform Flynn's books, but it takes a back seat to the plot and character development.  The politically liberal reader might be put off by it. Oh, well.  These books are a fun, exciting read, and without flag-waving naivete portray the hard-core patriotism that I hope any American warrior in the war on terror will hold to.

Protect and Defend

The most succinct way for me to describe the Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series is this: if you like the TV show 24, you will love Mitch Rapp. Rapp works for the CIA, but in reality he is the United States's best weapon against terrorism. Like Jack Bauer, he has little patience for bureaucracy and indecision, and is willing to push the limits of laws and propriety to see that justice is done.

Protect and Defend is the eighth book in the series. The tenth book, Pursuit of Honor currently sits on the NYT bestseller list. (I haven't read that one yet.) I listened to #9, Extreme Measures, on CD; I had never heard of Flynn but saw it on the shelf at the library. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and now I have read or listened to 1-8 in the series in order. Each stands independently, but I enjoyed seeing the characters and relationships develop over the course of the series. Again, the similarities to 24 are striking. Any of these novels would make a great season of 24. In fact, imdb.com lists Vince Flynn as a consultant on a few episodes of 24. (I just discovered that it's also saying a movie version of Protect and Defend is in development!)

Protect and Defend finds Iran working secretly on a nuclear weapons program. An Israeli spy, who has been embedded for years at the facility, pulls off a brilliant piece of sabotage, completely destroying it. Of course, Iran blames the US and begins throwing around accusations. They even sink one of their own ships and try to pin it on the US to drum up international sympathy. Rapp's boss and close friend, CIA director Irene Kennedy, arranges a clandestine meeting in Iraq with her Iranian counterpart, hoping they can work out a means to defuse the situation. Unfortunately for Irene, too many people knew about the meeting, and they use it to set up her abduction. Rapp, not content to let diplomacy get her back, leads a rescue effort that. . . . Well, I don't want to give too much away!

Flynn pulls no punches--politically correct he is not! I know as much about real life in the CIA and international espionage as I do about fixing my daughter's hair--that is, nothing! But Flynn writes convicingly, with lots of realism and detail. I guess these books would not be considered great works literature, destined to be included in the next version of Harvard Classics, but Flynn tells a great story, keeping the reader up at night eagerly turning the pages and waiting impatiently for the next book to be published. Read and enjoy!