Posts Tagged ‘Vince Flynn’

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “American Assassin”

The other day I finished reading American Assassin, Vince Flynn‘s twelfth book, and the eleventh in his series of novels featuring Mitch Rapp.

American Assassin is a prequel to the other books in the series.  We all know that Mitch Rapp is a fearless killer who enjoys outsmarting his enemies, but how did he get started in the CIA?  This book showcases Mitch Rapp’s training at a secret CIA training center, and then his first mission as a covert ops warrior.

Vince Flynn — American Assassin

American Assassin begins at a secret training center near Lake Anna, Virginia.

CIA agent Irene Kennedy drives recent college graduate Mitch Rapp to the training center.  There he is to survive the intense training and compete with six other candidates to be a member of Orion Team, a secret band of covert warriors in a program designed by CIA Director Thomas Stansfield.

Of course, he has to survive the training first, and that’s not an easy task.  Immediately upon arriving at the training camp, the lead instructor, Stan Hurley, challenges Mitch Rapp to a fight.  The fight is brutal, and just when Mitch is about to win, Stan cheats and defeats his opponent.  What Stan didn’t know is that Mitch is highly skilled in martial arts, and that he’s far more dangerous than he looks.

The other candidates discover that as well.  Mitch Rapp has superior intelligence as well as athletic abilities.  The only thing he doesn’t know how to do is shoot a gun, but that’s overcome with some simple instructions by the camp’s instructors.

Mitch’s biggest challenge during the training is when competing against a candidate named Victor.  From the beginning, Victor is a loudmouth who keeps testing his fellow candidates.  He tries to fight them, and he tries to get them kicked out of the unit.  At one point he even breaks a fellow candidate’s nose during a routine fighting session.  Mitch figures out Victor’s secret (he really an instructor) and ultimately fights him, getting the best of the arrogant jerk. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Pursuit of Honor”

Last week while on vacation in Florida, I finished reading Pursuit of Honor, the tenth book in Vince Flynn‘s series of stories involving CIA operative / superhero Mitch Rapp.  This story involves the pursuit of the terrorists responsible for the attacks that took place in the previous book, Extreme Measures.

At the end of Extreme Measures, a group of Muslim extremists led by Karim Nour-al-Din bombed several restaurants in Washington, D.C., killing 185 people including several members of Congress and their staff.  The terrorists then launched a follow-up attack against the National Counterterrorist Center.  That attack was ultimately stopped by Mitch Rapp and Mike Nash.  The dead terrorists were tossed out the building’s windows before the terrorists’ suicide bomb vests could detonate and destroy the rest of the building.

Vince Flynn — Pursuit of Honor

Pursuit of Honor begins several days later in New York City as Mitch Rapp tracks Glen Adams, an inspector general of the CIA, and learns that Glen has been giving out classified information.  Glen sees himself as a liberator, but Mitch Rapp and his colleagues see him as a traitor to his country.  Glen is abducted by Mitch and taken to a secret CIA facility in northern Virginia where Glen is fully interrogated.

Meanwhile, the three Muslim extremist terrorists, Karim, Hakim and a Moroccan named Ahmed, have tracked west to a small town in southern Iowa.  Instead of trying to flee the country immediately after the attack, when security would be at its highest at the airports and border crossings, Hakim’s plan had them hide in a small town for a few weeks until the security had decreased.  The terrorists could then leave the country to the north through Canada, or they could work their way south to the Gulf of Mexico and escape that way.

As long as they kept quiet and used their heads, then escaping from the country should be fairly easy.  Hakim was an educated person who had traveled extensively through the U.S., knew how the laws and customs worked, and could speak English with an American accent.  He was the one who used a dummy corporation to purchase an old house on the outskirts of town for he and his companions to hide for a few weeks.

Unfortunately, Karim, the aggressive leader of the group, is a hothead who refuses to listen to Karim’s advice.  Karim insists on killing everybody in their path, and it’s Karim’s stupidity and over-aggressiveness that ultimately leads to their downfall. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Extreme Measures”

Today (yes, today — December 8, 2013) I finished reading Vince Flynn‘s Extreme Measures, the ninth book in Flynn’s main series of novels.

Once again, Extreme Measures takes readers into the world of Muslim extremists and terrorism.  It’s up to Mitch Rapp to solve the puzzle and save the day.  But does he succeed in this book, or do the terrorists win?

Let’s take a look and find out.

Extreme Measures begins at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

CIA operative Mike Nash arrives at Bagram to interrogate two high-profile prisoners:  Abu Haggani and Mohammad al-Haq.  Abu is a senior Taliban commander who used to be in charge of suicide operations in Afghanistan.  Mohammad was the Taliban’s liason with al-Qaeda, a trusted man in the organization.  The only problem is that neither man is willing to give up an information, and the air base was recently visited by several U.S. Senators on a fact-finding mission.  Should the prisoners be tortured in any sort of way, then there will be hell to pay.

Fortunately, CIA man Mitch Rapp doesn’t care about regulations when it comes to withdrawing information from terrorists.  That’s especially true when two terrorist cells have been recently captured, and evidence is quickly pointing towards a third cell.  Both Mitch and Mike beat and extract some information from the captured terrorists, and they make a deal for one of them to reveal even more information.

Those talks are stopped when Captain Trevor Leland alerts the air base commander, Brigadier General Scott Garrison, about the presence of the men from the CIA.  The interrogation is halted and, after noticing the injuries on the prisoners, Captain Leland insists that Mitch Rapp be placed under arrest.  General Garrison isn’t too sure, but he’s convinced when Captain Leland convinces him to basically cover his ass.  He’s aware of violations in place.  He should at least temporarily detain Rapp until somebody higher in the chain of command gives him a different order.

The biggest problem occurs when Captain Leland gets pushy with Rapp.  He makes a threatening move to his sidearm and Rapp reacts, disabling the captain and knocking him to the ground.  The move injures the captain’s arm and he gets a black eye after hitting his face against a table.  Now we’re talking about a charge of striking an officer, a major crime in the military.

Rapp is taken into custody at the air base.  He’s later released after promising to apologize to Captain Leland.  Unfortunately, Leland does not accept the apology and decides to press charges against the CIA operative.  General Garrison tries to talk Leland out of doing so, and even offers him a promotion in rank and relocation to a base of his choosing, but Leland insists on his legal route.  Rapp is going to have to deal with that back in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, the third terrorist cell is training at Ciudad del Este, a small compound outside of a remote town in South America.  The leader of the terrorists is Karim Nour-al-Din, and he’s determined to make a name for himself in al-Qaeda. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Act of Treason”

Next we’re reviewing Act of Treason, the eighth book written by Vince Flynn and the seventh book starring his main character Mitch Rapp.

In the previous book, Consent to Kill, it was revealed that President Hayes was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, and he would not be seeking re-election.  Between that and the death of Mitch Rapp’s wife, Anna Reilly, that’s all we need to know when it comes to events from one story leading into the next one.

Act of Treason begins in October of a presidential election year.  On the ticket for the Democrats is the recent governor of Georgia, Josh Alexander.  His running mate is Mark Ross, a Senator who will do whatever it takes to win the election.  Being vice president is just one step from his ultimate goal of the presidency.

Governor Alexander was a likeable person who initially had a lead in the polls, but that lead was slipping and the candidate was in serious trouble of losing the election.  That changed one day as an al-Qaeda-like terrorist bombing attacked his motorcade one day.  The bombing destroyed the second limousine in the motorcade, killing Alexander’s wife, a few Secret Service agents, and some innocent bystanders as well.  Alexander and Ross were both riding in the first limousine, and they were unharmed.

The general public’s sympathy went into overdrive for Alexander’s loss, and he was swept into the White House by a landslide victory.  The terrorist who carried out the bombing made a clean getaway.

Fast forward to January of next year.

It’s a week before President-elect Alexander is sworn into office.  CIA Director Irene Kennedy is expecting to lose her job when the new administration takes over and makes sweeping changes in leadership, though she doesn’t seem to be too upset about it.  It’s a high-pressure job and she’s looking forward to having some time off to raise her son before he turns into a teenager.

One day she arranges to have a meeting in her office with Skip McMahon, the director of the FBI.  Their meeting is also going to involve a man named Cap Baker, an informant.  Neither Irene or Skip know what this meeting is about, but apparently it’s very important.  After Baker arrives he makes Irene and Skip sign non-disclosure agreements before he can continue with the meeting.  Once they sign the forms Baker shows them a series of photos that shine a whole new light on the terrorist bombing from last fall.

The photos show Jillian Rautbort, Alexander’s now deceased wife, having sex with a man who was certainly not her husband.  The mystery man in the photos is Secret Service Special Agent Matt Cash.  Matt Cash was assigned to ride in the second limousine on the day of the bombing, and he was killed along with Jillian.

Suddenly this sheds a whole new light on the terrorist bombing.  Were Jillian and Matt killed to not only help elect Alexander and Ross, but to also cover a dark secret? Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Consent to Kill”

A couple of days ago I finished reading Vince Flynn’s Consent to Kill, the seventh book written by Flynn and book number six in his popular series starring CIA operative Mitch Rapp.

First published in 2005, Consent to Kill is a story involving payback and revenge.  A powerful man seeks vengeance against Mitch Rapp for something that he did a while ago, and when that plan for payback backfires it’s Rapp’s turn to seek his revenge.  Rapp transitions from the hunted to once again becoming the calculated hunter, and in no time his enemies are fleeing from one of the most feared assassins in the world.

In Vince Flynn’s previous book, Memorial Day, we read about how Mitch Rapp was able to successfully stop a nuclear attack against Washington, D.C.  He had to brutally interrogate some Muslim extremist terrorists in order to gain the necessary information to stop the devastating attack from not only killing thousands of innocent people, but the President of the United States and most of the government leaders as well.  One small part of those events would put Mitch Rapp through one of his darkest days in Consent to Kill.

Consent to Kill begins with Saeed Ahmen Abdullah speaking with Saudi Prince Muhammed bin Rashid, expressing his desire to have Mitch Rapp killed.  Saeed is the father of Waheed Abdullah, a Muslim extremist terrorist who attempted to attack America with nuclear weapons smuggled into the country.  That attack was stopped in the book Memorial Day.  To gain critical information about the imminent nuclear attack, Mitch Rapp had to torture Waheed Abdullah.

After torturing Waheed and gaining the necessary information, Rapp had Waheed placed in a secure prison in Afghanistan.  However, fake news reports indicated that Waheed was killed so that there wouldn’t be a rescue attempt for the terrorist.  Waheed’s father, a Saudi billionaire, took those reports seriously and with the help of Prince Muhammed bin Rashid, a large bounty was placed on Rapp’s head.

Killing Mitch Rapp would certainly not be an easy task.  First of all, the man was a lone wolf warrior who killed others with ease and could sniff out a trap or an ambush.  Second, killing Rapp would also bring about the fury of not only his colleagues but the CIA and U.S. government as a whole.  Only a top assassin is capable of carrying out such a monumental task, especially one who will not leave any connections with the Saudi royal family. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Memorial Day”

Recently I finished reading Vince Flynn’s thriller, Memorial Day.  This is the fifth book in his main series starring Mitch Rapp, a super commando who works with the CIA.

First published back in 2004, Memorial Day is the story about an upcoming terrorist attack here in the United States.  The Muslim extremists have their sights set big in a dual attack that’s supposed to not only destroy the top level of leadership in the country but also cripple the economy and send the country into the deepest recession in history.  For part of the country, the attack itself will leave the land inhabitable for hundreds of years.

Memorial Day begins with Mustafa al-Yamani, a Muslim extremist, killing the captain of a private yacht and sneaking his way from Cuba into the southern part of the United States.  Al-Yamani meets with his target and successfully enters the country near Merritt Island at Cape Canaveral, Florida.  The man is committed to his mission and time is of the essence as al-Yamani is suffering from advanced stages of radiation poisoning, and he literally has only a few days left to live.

In Washington, D.C., Mitch Rapp, an analyst with the CIA and expert on international terrorism, gains information about an upcoming meeting of terrorists scheduled to take place somewhere in Pakistan.  The few pieces of intelligence point to terrorist chatter about a bomb, a really big bomb, and Rapp is set on flying to Pakistan and conducting a raid on the camp with other special forces soldiers.  Rapp’s boss and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Dr. Irene Kennedy, clears Mitch for the secret raid into Pakistan.

The commando raid commences and five terrorists are ultimately captured, two of them allegedly had direct ties to the planning on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Along with the terrorists, a vast collection of new intelligence into the recent terrorist actions was also captured.

Computer specialists begin accessing the captured files, and it’s quickly noted that a big terrorist attack was either in the final stages of planning, or it’s already been authorized by the terrorist leaders.  The information is pointing towards a high profile bombing, something that will create a tremendous amount of damage from a single blast.  One of the images shows a map with projected damage circles radiating away from a major city.  It’s a similar type of map used to analyze the power of nuclear weapons.

Since time is a serious issue, Mitch and a fellow CIA specialist use brutal tactics to interrogate the recently captured prisoners.  One of their techniques involves tossing the terrorists into a pen filled with dirty pigs.  The most effective technique was when Rapp shot the two 9/11 terrorists in cold blood right in front of their companions.  After shooting their companions and further wounding at least one of the spared prisoners, Mitch learns part of the horrifying truth about what is about to happen back home in the U.S. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Executive Power”

Executive Power is the fourth book in Vince Flynn’s popular Mitch Rapp series of action thrillers.  Executive Power continues the story following the events in Separation of Power, though almost everything in Executive Power is new material versus being a direct sequel and continuation from the previous novel.

Executive Power begins with the attempted rescue of an American family being held hostage by Muslim radicals in the Philippines.  A Navy SEAL team arrives on the shore of an island, but they walk into an ambush.  Somebody back in Washington, D.C. spoke about the mission and the rescue team’s mission was compromised.  The SEALs make an armed retreat and escape from the forces, but two of the super soldiers are killed in action.

Back in the U.S., Mitch Rapp’s cover was blown after the press went overboard telling the story about how he led a team of commandos into Iraq and stopped Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program at the end of Separation of Power.  Instead of outright leaving the CIA like he wanted, the head of the CIA, Dr. Irene Kennedy, persuaded Mitch to stay with the organization and become a top-level analyst concerning international terrorism.

Mitch’s story in this novel begins as he and his new wife, Anna Rielly, a news reporter he rescued during the White House hostage event in Transfer of Power, are on their honeymoon in the Caribbean.

After he returns from the Caribbean, Mitch learns about the botched rescue mission.  Analysts in the CIA quickly discover a series of e-mail communications between Washington workers and the American ambassador in the Philippines, and it doesn’t take long before Rapp, Dr. Kennedy and President Hayes learn the true scope of the corruption both in Washington and in the Philippines.

Another rescue mission is organized, only this time just a handful of people are aware of it.  Mitch Rapp recruits his retired Navy SEAL friend Scott Coleman to lead a team of commandos back into the Philippines.  The mission is two fold:  the corrupt general in charge of the Philippine army needs to be dealt with, and the American family must be rescued.  They’ve been held captive for several months now and their fate continues to look more bleak.

Mitch leaves behind his wife, assuring her that he’ll be running the show from behind the scenes and not being involved with the direct action, and flies out to the Philippines.  Once there he stays on a U.S. ship and coordinates the operation until he’s needed directly in the field.  With a team of Navy SEALs already on the island in position, Mitch arranges a meeting with the top general and confirms his suspicions.  After the meeting, a Navy SEAL sniper shoots and kills the general.  While this was taking place, other SEALs were tracking the recently discovered American hostages.

Knowing that the timing is critical, and using a major weather system (a system just shy of a tropical storm) as cover, Rapp ignores the promise he made to his wife and leads the Navy SEALs into the terrorist camp.  The commandos efficiently eliminate dozens of terrorists and the American family is safely rescued.  The only problem is that Mitch Rapp is shot in the ass.  It’s a wound that he cannot hide from his wife.  When she finally discovers the wound and learns that Mitch was in the thick of the fight, she goes ballistic and gives him hell. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Separation of Power”

Continuing directly after the events in Vince Flynn’s novel The Third Option is the sequel Separation of Power.  This is the third book in Flynn’s popular Mitch Rapp series.

As we left off in The Third Option, Thomas Stanfield, the former director of the CIA has just passed away and Dr. Irene Kennedy is expected to take his position.  She just needs to make it through the Senate’s confirmation process and not everybody wants her to succeed.  Mitch Rapp is still angry about being double-crossed in Germany and he’s on his personal mission of finding out who really wanted him dead.  His only link is an Italian woman named Donatella Rahn, Rapp’s old flame from previous times.  Meanwhile, Senator Hank Clark, the man who ordered Rapp’s death, is continuing with his sinister plan of taking down Dr. Kennedy’s credibility along with that of President Hayes.  He hopes to emerge as a shining knight and use that fame to launch a bid for the presidency.

Separation of Power begins with a corrupt billionaire named Mark Ellis flying down to the Bahamas to meet Senator Hank Clark on his private island.  We learn that Ellis gained much of his wealth by using some of the CIA’s spying techniques to learn what kind of deals businesses were planning on making.  The only problem is that Dr. Irene Kennedy, the woman expected to take over as Director of the CIA, is not going to allow for those spying techniques to continue, and that’ll cut off Ellis’ primary source of inside information.  Senator Clark informs Ellis that he has a plan to destroy Dr. Kennedy and things in the CIA will basically return to normal.

Mitch Rapp, meanwhile, is still considering ending his career with the CIA.  Now that he’s in a serious relationship with Anna Reilly, a news reporter he saved during the terrorist attack in the White House in Transfer of Power, he and Anna both want him out of the field and going on those dangerous assassination missions.  Dr. Kennedy has offered him a desk job that would keep him close to those old assignments but safe within the walls of the CIA, but Mitch is unsure if he really wants to take the job or not.  He’s not used to taking orders from people all day or dealing with office politics.

When Mitch meets with Dr. Kennedy about the new job, she shows Mitch photos that the security cameras took of Donatella Rahn when she assassinated Peter Cameron in his office.  Dr. Kennedy knows the woman’s identification and is prepared to send a CIA team to Donatella’s home in Italy to bring the woman back here for questioning.  Not wanting the CIA to know about his past with Donatella, Mitch volunteers to travel to Italy to interrogate Donatella and find out who hired the woman to kill Peter Cameron.  Besides, the trip to Italy would help Mitch and Anna’s relationship and give Mitch a chance to ask the woman to marry him.

Meanwhile, Senator Clark wants to sever the connection with Donatella Rahn.  He hires Rahn’s handler in the Mossad, a man named Ben Freidman, and orders her assassination.  After ordering her death, Senator Clark and Congressman Albert Rudin work together on Clark’s plan to destroy Dr. Kennedy’s credibility. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “The Third Option”

Following a few months after the events of Transfer of Power, the first Vince Flynn book starring his hero, Mitch Rapp, is the book, The Third Option.

The book’s title refers to a process of handing an international problem.  The first option is to use diplomacy.  If that fails the second option is to use a military strike.  If the military cannot be used for one reason or another, then solving the problem comes down to the third option, an assassination.  The assassin leaves behind no traces of his or her origin, allowing the attacking country deniability.

The Third Option begins in northern Germany as Mitch Rapp is on an assassination assignment with the CIA.  His target is the wealthy Count Heinrich Hagenmiller V, an arms dealer who supplies weapons to Saddam Hussein and other enemies of the United States.  Don’t worry about why Germany continues to protect Hagenmiller or what Saddam Hussein thinks about the matter.  The Third Option jumps right into the assassination and its aftermath.

Rapp checks out the exterior of Hagenmiller’s mansion and then meets up with his two mission companions, known to him as Tom and Jane Hoffman.  Rapp doesn’t like being in a team with them and is suspicious of their actions, but the three of them plan the assassination of the wealthy count.  Rapp and Jane Hoffman pose as Germany’s federal agents and talk their way into the mansion.  While in a private room, Rapp kills Hagenmiller while Jane takes out one of his bodyguards.  Before he can stop her, Jane shoots Rapp twice in the chest, leaving him for dead.  Without bothering to fire a final round into his head, Jane flees from the mansion and she and Tom make their getaway.

Fortunately, Mitch Rapp was wearing body armor and was only temporarily knocked out during his attack.  Rapp is forced to set fire to the room to cover his DNA evidence, and then he easily flees from the burning mansion.  Rapp steals a car, gets to an airport, and kidnaps a taxi driver to take him to another city in Germany.  From there Mitch Rapp uses his fake IDs to easily make his way back to the United States.  As you can guess, at this point Mitch Rapp is upset and doesn’t know who to trust in the government.

Back in the U.S., we’re re-introduced to Anna Reilly, the hot female reporter that Mitch Rapp rescued from terrorists in Transfer of Power.  She’s waiting for Mitch to return home so that he can finally quit working with the CIA and try to live a normal life.  She begins to grow worries as it takes longer and longer for Mitch to make contact with her again. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Transfer of Power”

In the spring of 2011, I read Vince Flynn’s political thriller, Protect and Defend.

I’ve heard of the author and the book’s plot sounded interesting.  After reading the book, I thought it was so cheesy and stupid that I practically swore off the author.  It felt like one cliché after another.  However, for some reason still unknown to me, I recently picked up one of Flynn’s earlier books in the series and gave it a fair shot.

And this book was much better.

Today I finished reading Transfer of Power, the first book in Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series.  Why did I resume this series with Flynn’s second book and his his first one?  Well, I haven’t found the first book in my usual places . . . yet.

The book begins with series hero and special agent, Mitch Rapp, conducting a raid with Navy SEALs.  Out in Iran they kill a few terrorists and capture Fara Harut, a terrorist leader.  Special forces helicopters safely extract the commandos and their prisoner while enemies from all angles fire upon the troops.

In Washington, D.C., terrorist leader Rafique Aziz is in the final stages of preparing an elaborate attack upon the mother of all targets.  After a long time planning, things are finally in place.  Aziz is cleverly disguised as an important fundraiser for the current political party in control of the government.  He’s in the Oval Office and preparing to meet President Robert Hayes.

While this is taking place, Mitch Rapp is flying back to Washington with Fara Harut.  The CIA is already in the process of interrogating the prisoner, and they quickly learn of a devastating attack that’s about to take place.  Sure enough, terrorists are planning on attacking the White House that very day.

And then the terrorists strike.

Rafique Aziz’s men receive an electronic signal and launch their attack upon the White House.  One of the terrorist snipes at Secret Service agents while other terrorists use explosives to breach into a secret tunnel that leads to a White House basement.  They successfully make their way into the most secure of buildings, killing everybody who stands in their way.  Just as Aziz is about to attack President Hayes, Secret Service agents receive an alert from the CIA, and they rush into the Oval Office and hurry the president downstairs to his secure bunker. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Term Limits”

Is it scary when political thrillers are so easily inspired by real life events?

How about it when the issues discussed in said thriller are not only present and more complicated today, but still on that path of spiraling dangerously out of control?

The root problem discussed in Vince Flynn’s 1997 thriller, Term Limits, is with out-of-control spending by the politicians in Washington, D.C.  Another issue is at cause, but it’s the continued spending and more spending that’s the focus factor in this novel.

Term Limits begins with President Jim Stevens trying to pass his latest budget, a budget full of pork spending and unnecessary burdens and taxes on the American taxpayers.  At first he’s still a few votes short of passing the budget, but thanks to his phone calls and White House Chief of Staff Stu Garret’s threatening, they find enough votes to pass the bill.

One of the Congressmen who intends on voting against the president’s budget is Michael O’ Rourke, a junior Congressman from Minnesota.  A former Marine, O’Rourke is fed up with the endless spending by his fellow politicians.  He doesn’t care if he doesn’t get re-elected in the next election.  O’Rourke is determined to do stick with his values and vote down the reckless spending.

As we quickly read, Congressman Michael O’Rourke isn’t the only person fed up with the politicians in Washington, D.C.

A night or two before Congress is to vote on the president’s budget, a team of terrorists using commando techniques make their strike.  Within a matter of hours, Senator Daniel Fitzgerald, Congressman Jack Koslowski and Senator Robert Downs are all assassinated with chilling precision.  The three members of Congress were some of the worst of the worst when it came to spending.  As we later find out, the killing of Senator Fitzgerald was also more of a personal matter.

The following morning, one of the news stations receives a letter from the terrorists stating their demands.  The demands include the cutting of wasteful government spending along with requiring Congress to pass a balanced budget.  Sadly, we’re still facing those same problems fifteen years after this book was first published. Read more…

RIP Vince Flynn (1966-2013)

This morning I learned about the passing of Vince Flynn.

I knew that he previously had a bout with prostate cancer, but I didn’t know that apparently he was still dealing with the deadly disease.  He was still writing and publishing his books with the next in the series scheduled to be released this fall.  Needless to say, the news about his passing was a bit of a shock to me.

Unfortunately for Mr. Flynn, the news of his death has been far outweighed by news about James Gandolfini’s sudden passing as well.  It seems that everywhere you look, from the main “society” home pages such as Yahoo!, MSN and AOL, and popular social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, the talk and conversations are pretty much all revolving around Gandolfini, a man who was immortalized by playing a mobster on the HBO hit series The Sopranos.

I don’t watch the national news stations.  Had it not been for a single headline on the website BreakingNews.com, I would have never heard about Vince Flynn’s passing yesterday morning.

Granted, many of Flynn’s novels weren’t exactly literary masterpieces.  So far I’ve read seven of his fourteen published novels (the fifteenth is scheduled to be released this fall), and from what I’ve read the better novels have been the earlier ones.  He still had some great characters, fantastic action sequences, and Flynn’s novels weren’t afraid to go against the endless bureaucracy and red tape in Washington or the liberal mentality in other parts of the country.  Mitch Rapp, his primary character, was not afraid to step over the line and kick serious ass when it was needed.

Fans of the 2013 action thriller Olympus Has Fallen (versus the upcoming White House Down, a film that looks so bad it’s hilarious) should really check out Vince Flynn’s Transfer of Power.  Let’s just say that the film is extremely similar to the book despite there not being an official connection between the two.  Word has it that one or two of Flynn’s books may officially be made into films in the near future. Read more…

Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Protect and Defend”

Last week I finished reading Vince Flynn‘s novel, Protect and Defend.

Protect and Defend is a modern day story taking place mainly in Iran and Iraq.  The story starts with a daring Israeli covert ops mission that levels a secret Iranian nuclear reactor.  The attack is from within the building and basically collapses the structure on top of itself, completely destroying the secret nuclear reactor program.

As expected, the Iranian government comes out blaming the U.S. government for destroying the structure, and threatens the United States in its usual manner.  Sensing potential terrorist strikes in the U.S., the United States president enlists Mitch Rapp to essentially go overseas and target the terrorists, bringing the fight to them and eliminating the bad guys before they could strike Western targets.

Rapp ultimately heads to Mosul, Iraq to meet with a contact, while Azad Ashani, the head of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, is also en-route to Mosul to meet with CIA Director Irene Kennedy.  The plan for Ashani and Kennedy is to meet and hopefully diffuse the escalating tensions between Iran and the United States before open war is declared. Read more…