Kill Shot

Kill Shot – by Vince Flynn

The second to last Mitch Rapp book before Vince Flynn was lost to this world due to cancer at the very young age of 47.  Was he aware he was terminally ill when he was writing his last few books?  I have no idea, but you would never know he was sick based on anything in the story.  

Flynn’s prior novel, American Assassin, took us back to the beginning of CIA super counter terrorist Mitch Rapp's career.  This book picks up where that one left off.  Why are we going backwards?  Not really sure, but this really isn’t a bad thing.  In these “early” episodes,  Rapp is still very green in terms of what he knows about his new world, yet he is already perceived as a diamond in the rough by the powers that be.  This guy is “something special”.

Although in many ways this book is just like all the other Mitch Rapp novels, this one does have some interesting new things in terms of settings and plot.  It goes something like this:  Rapp is sent to kill a Libyan terrorist in Paris, France.  During the attempted execution, something goes very wrong and Rapp realizes he’s been set up.  He barely escapes with his life.  So he’s crawling all over the streets of Paris – regaining his health while trying to figure out who the traitor is.  Since this is Mitch Rapp we’re talking about, we know there’s going to be hell to pay for whoever tried to kill him.  And, since this story is early in the series, many of the supporting cast that we know very well, can’t quite be trusted yet by Rapp.  Remember, he hasn’t been at this for very long, so no one is safe from his suspicions.

The thing I enjoyed most about this book is that Vince Flynn leaves a lot of politics out of this one.  I was a bit tired of hearing about all the whiney liberals in Congress who are out to dismantle the CIA and have “no idea” what kind of dangerous world we live in.  These bleeding hearts were always wanting to stop Mitch Rapp and company from doing his job.  They just never seem to “get” how dangerous some terrorist factions in the world really are.  No, this bickering is mostly absent, and instead we get a nice, fast-paced spy story where our hero must always stay just one step ahead of the people that set him up, in addition to the “real” bad guys.  And there are plenty of them here.

Flynn does an admirable job with character development, and always provides his readers with believable backgrounds and back stories of all the new people that we meet within these pages.  That was one of my favorite aspects of the whole book.  These books, though, are an acquired taste, and I really can’t tell that much difference from book to book.  It was still a fun ride, though, and I’m sorry that Vince Flynn passed away so young.

Note: To my knowledge, there will be a new author that will carry on the Mitch Rapp series.  Terrorists beware!