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Title: The Last Man
Series: Mitch Rapp #13
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 377
Words: 127K

From Vinceflynn.com & Me

The head of clandestine operations in Afghanistan has been kidnapped, his four bodyguards executed in cold blood. With the CIA plunged into crisis mode, Rapp is dispatched to find his missing friend, Joe Rickman, at all costs. He isn’t the only one looking for Rickman; an FBI special agent is at his heels, determined to blame Rapp for the bloody debacle. Rapp is, however, the only one who knows certain things about the vanished black ops master—secrets that in the wrong hands could prove disastrous. With elements of his own government undermining him—and America’s security—at every turn, Rapp must be as ruthless and deceitful as his enemies to complete this razor’s-edge mission. And it turns out Rickman planned the whole thing and tried to kill Rapp because he knew Rapp was the only one who could catch him out. So when Rapp catches up to Rickman, he puts a bullet in his head. Because that’s how you treat traitors. Period.

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Sadly, this was the last Mitch Rapp book written by Vince Flynn. Flynn succumbed to cancer after this and that was thought to be the end of the matter. Thankfully, another author took up the challenge and Flynn’s estate allowed it to go forward, so we do get more Mitch Rapp stories. We’ll see what they are like when I get to them. But to this book.

I KNEW Rickman was the jackass scumbag from the get go. I was hoping Flynn wasn’t going to go the obvious route and that we’d be getting something really tricky and twisted. C’est la vie! It was still a great thriller with tons of action. The assassin who killed Rapp’s wife and unborn baby gets involved and that really upped the stakes. It also showed the difference between a free lance assassin for hire and someone like Rapp.

The political side of things are touched upon but they wrap up so quickly and so neatly at the end that I wondered if Flynn did it that way just to finish the book. I was kind of hoping Rapp would pay the traitorous Senator a visit and maybe even kill him. You don’t sell top secret secrets to countries like Afghanistan and NOT be a traitor. Sadly, the CIA Director, Kennedy, makes the most of it politically and pretty much tells the Senator he is now her plaything or she’ll reveal everything. That makes sense but it’s not as cool as what I wanted 😀

I was pretty happy with this read and it helped to wile away a couple of days. That’s all I can truly ask for from a book.

★★★✬☆

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Title: Kill Shot
Series: Mitch Rapp #12
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 336
Words: 116.5K

★★★★✬

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Title: American Assassin
Series: Mitch Rapp #11
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 381
Words: 125K

Synopsis:

From the Publishers

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist’s worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world…and then tragedy struck.

Two decades of cutthroat, partisan politics has left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran and CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. The rise of Islamic terrorism is coming, and it needs to be met abroad before it reaches America’s shores. Stansfield directs his protÉgÉe, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of command-men who do not exist.

What type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Kennedy finds him in the wake of the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. Two-hundred and seventy souls perished that cold December night, and thousands of family and friends were left searching for comfort. Mitch Rapp was one of them, but he was not interested in comfort. He wanted retribution.

Six months of intense training has prepared him to bring the war to the enemy’s doorstep, and he does so with brutal efficiency. Rapp starts in Istanbul, where he assassinates the Turkish arms dealer who sold the explosives used in the Pan Am attack. Rapp then moves onto Hamburg with his team and across Europe, leaving a trail of bodies. All roads lead to Beirut, though, and what Rapp doesn’t know is that the enemy is aware of his existence and has prepared a trap. The hunter is about to become the hunted, and Rapp will need every ounce of skill and cunning if he is to survive the war-ravaged city and its various terrorist factions.

My Thoughts:

You know, I think this was one of the best Mitch Rapp novels so far. His college sweetheart is already dead, his future wife hasn’t entered the picture yet and we get to see the forging of an unparalleled weapon.

THIS is what I wanted from the get-go. A man unfettered by human connection, touched by tragedy but with an uncorrupted moral compass. A weapon with a conscience, as it were. If Mitch has to have a companion, he needs someone compatible. He’s a Desert Eagle 357 Magnum. His dead wife was a glass of whiskey. Those 2 things aren’t inherently compatible. What Mitch’s gun needs is either a matching gun or a security case where it can rest until needed. I don’t think that’s going to happen though.

Being a prequel, we know that Mitch isn’t going to fail and as such some of the tension is gone but the action keeps up the tempo and this is a thrill a minute. I also wondered if it would be a good thing to start the series here, but I am in the camp of reading a series in which the author wrote it and despite how good I think this book is, nothing about it changed my thoughts on the reading order.

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Title: Pursuit of Honor
Series: Mitch Rapp #10
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 402
Words: 129.5K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

The book opens days after Muslim extremists have blown up a power lunch restaurant filled with members of Congress and staffers. After that, a second squad attacks the National Counter Terrorist Center killing dozens more until Mitch Rapp and his partner Mike Nash send the bad guys off to paradise. With nearly 200 dead, the nation is in no mood to negotiate with the Islamic extremists. The President has given Rapp a green light to be the judge, jury and executioner. The sharp edge of the CIA’s sword has been let loose with few strings attached. The story takes place over the following week.

Rapp is on the trail of a liberal lawyer inspector general of the CIA who has been giving out information that some consider to aid the enemy. Meanwhile, three of the cell that helped carry out the DC attack are hiding out in rural Iowa, waiting for the heat to die down. Hakim is the mastermind who knows about the US after living here for a long time while Karim is the hotheaded soldier who wants a legacy as The Lion of al Qaeda. One day, a dad and son walk up to their farmhouse asking for permission to hunt nearby. Hakim gave them his permission because he knows that’s all they want, but Karim is convinced they are undercover police and kills them both. Now they are on the run, trying to stay a step ahead of the police. Neither trusts the other and they ended up splitting. Hakim to Nassau to get money and hide somewhere while Karim and Ahmed, their loyal servant went to Washington to wreak more havoc.

After the President award a medal to Nash (set up by Mitch for Nash to give Nash a better life), Karim kidnapped Nash’s daughter while Nash and his wife have dinner in a restaurant. Karim and Ahmed brought Nash’s daughter to the Lincoln Memorial and decided to make a deal with Nash. At the exchange point, Mitch successfully killed Karim.

My Thoughts:

Once again, the author gets a family involved and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out until it was all over with. It certainly adds a lot dramatic tension but at the same time I don’t like it. Children being in danger, in one form or another, is not something I want in my entertainment.

This alternates between Mitch Rapp’s point of view of the story and the terrorists who survived the attack from the last book, Extreme Measures. The terrorists are a study in contrasts and there is as much conflict between them as there is between them all and Rapp. It made for an alphabet soup of tension and story telling and I rather enjoyed it.

Director Kennedy (head of the CIA) continues to play a very small part and I have to admit I miss her not having as much to do with the story as in the earlier books. She’s smart as a whip and I always enjoyed reading about her as she maneuvered the politics of whatever situation was going on while Rapp dealt with the physical side of things.

Taking a little break and limiting myself to 3 Mitch Rapp books at a time seems to be the right move.

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This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Extreme Measures
Series: Mitch Rapp #9
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 412
Words: 132K

Synopsis:

From Vinceflynn.com

Now, Rapp and his protege, Mike Nash, may have met their match. The CIA has detected and intercepted two terrorist cells, but a third is feared to be on the loose. Led by a dangerous mastermind obsessed with becoming the leader of al-Qaeda, this determined and terrifying group is about to descend on America.

Rapp needs the best on this assignment, and Nash, who has served his government honorably for sixteen years first as an officer in the Marine Corps and then as an operative in an elite counterterrorism team run by Rapp is his choice.

Together, they have made careers out of meeting violence with extreme violence and have never wavered in the fight against the jihadists and their culture of death.

Both have fought the war on terrorism in secret without accolades or acknowledgment of their personal sacrifices.

Both have been forced to lie to virtually every single person they care about, and both have soldiered on with the knowledge that their hard work and lethal tactics have saved thousands of lives.

But the political winds have changed in America, and certain leaders on Capitol Hill are pushing to have men like Rapp and Nash put back on a short leash. And then one spring afternoon in Washington, DC, everything changes.

My Thoughts:

This was a good thriller. My only real gripe is the ending. The politician who had been doing her hardest to get Rapp destroyed has a complete change of heart when the bombs go off and suddenly she’s all Super Patriot. It was bogus. People like her WANT this country destroyed, which is what makes them so insidious. It also makes them impervious to logic and all rational thought. Sadly, there is only one way to deal with people like that and it almost never turns out well. So that was my gripe.

Rapp takes front and center in this book. There have been times when Irene Kennedy, the director of the CIA plays as big a part but this time she is barely mentioned and pretty much lets Rapp loose. For the record, I am completely FOR enhanced interrogation methods. They work, despite what the media may trumpet. They are liars, pure and simple.

(Man, I keep going off about real world politics here, sorry about that)

Rapp isn’t just a meat head with a steady gun hand. He’s a smart and capable operator and the badguys and people who oppose him would do well to remember that. Rapp shows his brains through the whole book and it was great to see him outmaneuver almost everyone. There is one other guy, Mike Nash, who is similar to Rapp, but Nash has a wife and several kids. Part of the story centers around him and the stresses this creates. I was afraid the terrorists were going to kill his family much like Rapp’s family were killed earlier. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen. But up until the leader of the islamic jihadists was killed, I just couldn’t tell if the author was going to go there or not.

I had taken a break from Rapp last year and started up again in January. I am finding that 3 books is about the right amount for me. So after this book I’ll be taking another break, reading something else and then coming back to Rapp for another 3 books. Balancing my reading is getting more and more complicated but considering that I haven’t had a reading slump in over 6 or 7 years now, well, that means it is working. * pounds fist * Yeah, I am THAT good.

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This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Protect and Defend
Series: Mitch Rapp #8
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 336
Words: 105.5K

Synopsis:

From Vinceflynn.com

In Protect and Defend, the action begins in the heart of Iran, where billions of dollars are being spent on the development of a nuclear program. No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel launches one of the most creative and daring espionage operations ever conceived. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in the middle of Iran s second largest city. An outraged Iranian government publicly blames both Israel and the United States for the attack and demands retribution. Privately, Iran s bombastic president wants much more. He wants America and Israel to pay for their aggression with blood.

Enter Mitch Rapp, America s top counterterrorism operative. Used to employing deception, Rapp sees an opportunity where others see only Iranian reprisals that could leave thousands of Americans dead. Rapp convinces President Josh Alexander to sign off on a risky operation that will further embarrass the Iranian government and push their country to the brink of revolution. As part of the plan, CIA director Irene Kennedy is dispatched to the region for a clandestine meeting with Azad Ashani, her Iranian counterpart.

But Rapp isn’t the only one hatching plans. Iranian President Amatullah, has recruited Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar to do his dirty work. For decades Mukhtar has acted as a surrogate for Iran, blazing a trail of death and destruction across the Middle East and beyond. When Kennedy s meeting with Ashani goes disastrously wrong, Rapp and Mukhtar are set on a collision course that threatens to engulf the entire region in war. With the clock ticking, Rapp is given twenty-four hours, no questions asked, to do whatever it takes to stop Mukhtar, and avert an unthinkable catastrophe.

My Thoughts:

Now this was a return to form and expectations. Mitch is set loose on terrorists who have kidnapped Irene Saddler, the head of the CIA. The background is that the Israeli’s have destroyed Iran’s “secret” nuclear facility using an infiltrator and in retaliation the leaders of Iran not only kidnap Irene but also shoot one of their ships and blame it on America.

It’s been 2 years since Mitch’s wife was killed and while he’s holding on, he’s not doing well. He’s at the point of being a mad dog but not one that’s crazy, if that makes sense. He simply doesn’t care anymore. But Irene’s kidnapping makes it personal as she’s probably the person closest to him that he hasn’t completely pushed away.

The action side of things is great. When Irene is kidnapped by jihadi thugs, I was concerned that Flynn might over describe things. Thankfully, he keeps it within bounds of decency while still showing what happens to her. There was no rape, which I have to admit I gave a sigh of relief for. That kind of thing in fiction can be a deal breaker for me. When Mitch gets going he was like a whirlwind. It was exhausting just following along but oh so exciting too!

On the political side, it was ok. A new president had been elected in the previous book and he was a democrat, just like in the previous books. I didn’t know how Flynn was going to handle him. Well, he’s a bloody hawk and pretty much tells Mitch to do whatever is necessary. He showed more backbone than most of the republicans today in real life. So I don’t expect to have any problems, just like I didn’t with previous books and the politics.

We’ll have to see if Mitch falls apart in future books or if Flynn writes him into getting some help. Personally, I’d like to see him get some help. On the other hand, if he goes nutso, I wouldn’t mind him nuking Iran, Afghanistan or even Belgium. You know, for variety’s sake 😉 What I am concerned about is either Mitch turning into a “one book, one girl” kind of man like Mack Bolan the Executioner or even worse, getting involved long term with another woman and getting her killed. I almost quit when Anna died in book 6 and I’ll quit for sure if happens in future books.

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