Friday, April 29, 2011

"American Assassin" by Vince Flynn



The heart of a good story is the development of a character from one place to another – or, if the story revolves around an event, the progression from dilemma, to action, to resolution.  Such has been the story with Vince Flynn’s CIA Counterterrorism Specialist, a.k.a. ‘American Assassin’, Mitch Rapp for eleven previous books: terrorism strikes, Mitch Rapp acts, terrorists are killed; end of story – until the next book.  With this book, the story of Mitch Rapp is told: where he came from, how he developed, what made him into the weapon America uses to so effectively defend itself.
While Flynn does not go the route of the melodrama in exploring Rapp’s origins (delving into the man’s psyche and so forth), he does believably strip away the twenty years of experience with which the eleven novels imbue him.  Rapp is presented to the reader a young man on the cusp of his destiny.  It is fascinating to witness greatness at its first step.
I found myself a bit surprised when the six months of training at The Farm concluded less than halfway through the book.  Rapp was being sent to the Mideast, where a CIA operative lay captured, and tortured by terrorists.  Was Flynn abandoning the training to thrust his guy into the action, as if training he did not need?  No, this was a measure of the genius of Vince Flynn.  He subtly exhibited how training in anything is part bookwork and part work in the field. The second half of his training was conducted in the danger fields of Lebanon, under the tutelage of irascible old Stan Hurley, the hound that never says die.

       Certainly not the best book I have read all year, as all books to cross my literary eyes have been outstanding, this effort certainly steps well beyond what any fan of the character could ever hope.  Flynn successfully presents Rapp, day one, as a young man of extraordinary potential.  All he requires is a teacher of extraordinary ability and insight –  a call answered in the presence of the irascible Stan Hurley.
What I personally expected of this ‘prequel’ was a tale centering solely upon said training.  "How did Mitch Rapp become Mitch Rapp?"  The process by which the outstanding characters of literature attain their level of performance is fascinating.  How is it that a hero becomes a hero?  What traits exist within a person to cause them to step above and beyond the crowd?  There is a story within just that development; there lives an enlightenment within that mere growth process from which all can learn.  So hearing of Rapp's story offered potential.When the training is over halfway through the book, propelling Rapp into his first mission, I felt a twinge of concern the book would devolve into a ‘Mitch Rapp saves the day’ story of twenty years, losing the origins the training established.  This did not occur.  Flynn continues to portray Rapp as the highly-skilled operative who is still the rookie.  Though talented, the man still makes mistakes.




“Not the best book I have read all year, only because every book to cross my literary eyes thus far has excelled  – including this one, the origins of Vince Flynn’s CIA Counterterrorism Specialist, a.k.a  “American Assassin”, MItch Rapp. certainly thrilled my literary tastes with something genre-breaking and subtly original in its execution.

I know from talk of this latest from author Vince Flynn that it would be a ‘prequel’ – whatever that might mean – in taking Flynn’s rugged and individual CIA Counterterrorism Operative Specialist, i.e. “Assassin” back to the beginning.  In other words, how did it all begin?  Where did Mitch Rap come from?  What training did he undergo to become the man to take the fight to the terrorists, rather than cowering under the bed blankets of political correctness?

My anticipation was for a book solely revolving around training.  His six months with Stan Hurley, a cantankerous old geezer of a former CIA operative with a mouth and a mind as foul and hard as the terrorist he sent to the grave in the many missions of his heyday. 

It starts off this way. 

Then the six months of training appears finished less than half the way through the book.  The fieldwork begins, and my inquiring mind hangs with questions: where is the reveal as to ‘how Mitch Rapp became Mitch Rapp’ and ‘why did he appear already to be the Mitch Rapp of ten prior novels?’  The growth process necessary to any feasible character development, I didn’t see it.

Slowly, though, I began to see that development of Rapp’s character manifest itself, as the training (a fact I should have known already) was more than the six months “in the classroom”, so to speak.  One learns in the classroom, and then those lessons learned must be applied in the field, which Rapp does – and he commits mistakes the older Rapp never would.  Vince Flynn takes this signature character of his, the character all his readers know, and he successfully strips twenty years off his, resurrecting him as a young man, ready to step into the world and claim his destiny, loaded with immense talent, and yet a novice where it comes to applying any of that talent to useful ends.

Enter Stan Hurley.  Irene Kennedy, future CIA head.  Thomas Stansfield, current CIA head.  They provide him the training, the support, and the leadership he needs to become the man all Vince Flynn fans know from twenty years later.

As to the story itself, it is, based upon what Flynn writes here (my knowledge of that period of insurgent history is not), the genesis of America getting back into the game of being involved in the Middle East.  The CIA has been AWOL since the bombing of the Marines barracks in Beirut back in ’83.  Stansfield wishes to change that.  Be on the offensive.  Know what is going on.  Develop a new clandestine operation


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