Vince Flynn...

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

...Protect and Defend.


THUD.


I think Vince has reached that part of his career where he is just fulfilling his contractual obligations.

He has taken his superman know it all anti authoritarian who has the presidents ear, Mitch Rapp, and thrown him into circumstances unthinkable to the character not too long ago after he has written us so many good to great books.

An early, compelling central character who would have added much needed depth to the book is completely dropped right after his key moment is played out.

A catastrophic situation that could have complicated the entire book and added much needed intrigue is forgotten about very quickly as well.

Flynn takes the leading bad guy and turns him into a caricature buffoon who makes errors in calculation that would have never gotten him to the position he attained.

In a world of double dealing and conflicting interests Vince plays the story out and ties up loose ends against a back drop of laughably clear good guy/bad guy black and whiteness that makes me feel like a good storyteller started this thing and then Micky Mouse walks in when the wizard stepped out for a bathroom break and turns it into painting by numbers, kindergarten edition.

On top of that this thing becomes a 'page turner' by shear virtue that there are only about 15 words per page going 400 pages in what Clancy, in his day, would have covered in 100.

If this was the first in the series there would have been no second.

blech

[vraiblonde]

I'm surprised you say that; I thought it was a good read. Of course, I'm just happy that Flynn killed off the crazy lib wife, so anything after that is a relief.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

I'm surprised you say that; I thought it was a good read. Of course, I'm just happy that Flynn killed off the crazy lib wife, so anything after that is a relief.

...surprised you would say that you are surprised that I would say that.

Can you imagine Mitch Rapp going along with it if someone told him Irene was meeting her Iranian counterpart in a cafe in the middle of Mosul and, btw, no US military units would be allowed to be within 2 miles of the place?

Now, imagine it being Rapp's freaking idea.

Further, how does Rapp bag Garcia, then hold her out of the tactical role of offing Stu, have her agree it was the right move and THEN LEAVE her out of the rest of the book?

How does Shoshan, who dedicated so much to infiltrating the reactor simply disappear after the implosion? His escape from Iran as a Mossad agent who just destroyed an Iranian nuke facility and is on his own getting out could have been a white knuckle ride and added a huge factor to the game Rapp ran, everyone not knowing if the Iranians had caught him or not. Rapp doesn't even consider the possibility.

And Ashani could have been dying from radioactive poisoning making him far for determined to see his beloved Iran not disgraced and his family protected, like maybe Mitch promises to get them out in exchange for the goods on Muhktar.

And Muhktar could been going crazy with violence knowing he was dying.

Great premise. Bad story telling. Fortunately, I could read the stupid thing in 3 hours and be done with it.