The Wilbur Smith Discussion Forums

Anyone read Vince Flynn?

As I mentioned in the Brad Thor thread, Amazon reminded me to pre-order Vince Flynn's latest book; The Last Patriot. On picking up the book (err...Kindle) for the first time and after reading a couple of pages I realized I had no idea what I was reading about and after a bit of back tracking through my reading history I realized that I actually haven't read the previous 12 books in the series!

I picked up "American Assassin" this weekend which is the start of this series, although not the first Mitch Rapp book written by Flynn. I wasn't sure whether or not to start with this book, but Vince Flynn's official site advises you should, so I did...

I haven't finished the book yet, but so far I am enjoying it. I really like to read series so I'm pretty excited that I have found a new one that will keep me occupied for a few months!

I'll be updating this thread with my comments as I go along.

This is a prequel to the Mitch Rapp series. Mitch is amazing!!!!! Both my husband and I read these books. We just finished the latest one - "Last Man Standing" - and we were somewhat disappointed but some books are just better than others.

American Assassin

I finished reading this book wishing it had been better, but still having enjoyed it. The whole premise of an author writing a prequel to tell the back story of his most famous character sounds like a great idea and the book started off great with explaining why Rapp wanted to become a super-spy, who recruited him and his "spy training". Unfortunately just as his "training" got going, the book jumped forward 6 months to his first mission - skipping what I was thinking was going to be the majority of the book. Clearly there had to be some sort of major plot where Rapp has to kill a "baddie" but I was really hoping for more trade-craft type plot lines.

Other than feeling slightly let down on that front, my other slight frustration was the time spent on the narrative with other characters - I'm used to reading books (in this genre) where the majority of the narrative is spent with the main character with just a few chapters here and there from the perspective of others. It felt like in this book the narrative was split into thirds - one third each with Rapp, the baddies and Rapp's handlers. Maybe this is just a weird thing I have, but it bugged me.

Overall I would give it a 3 (out of 5) and will continue on with the rest of the series...

If I remember correctly I think "Last Man Standing" rambles on about other characters too much too.

I just brought home a book by Brad Meltzer. I had never heard of him before but saw he had a book on the NYT best seller list so I got the earliest book the library had. Haven't started it yet but will let you know what I think. I have a couple of other books in front of it to read.

Kill Shot
Much of the same comments as American Assassin for this book; I enjoyed it but was wanting a bit "more". 3/5.

Transfer of Power
Finished this last night and I enjoyed it a lot more than the 2 prequels. This feels like a proper book, whereas the previous two were more like short stories! I did feel it was a little long and drawn out, especially in the middle, but the ending quickened up nicely. 4/5.

annagram wrote:I just brought home a book by Brad Meltzer. I had never heard of him before but saw he had a book on the NYT best seller list so I got the earliest book the library had. Haven't started it yet but will let you know what I think. I have a couple of other books in front of it to read.

I have started two books by this author and quit reading both of them about thirty pages in. He just didn't t grab me.

It is with sadness that I have to deliver the news of the untimely dead of Vince Flinn today at the age of 47. I know there are several fans of his work in this forum. I was shellshocked when I run into the news just browsing books at Amazon. The link below provides somebackground information... very sad indeed.

http://www.omnivoracious.com/2013/06/vi ... -2013.html

Wow, very sad. I am currently reading one of his books at the moment as well.

I saw him on some talk show and knew that he was battling cancer but was still surprised to hear about his death. I was hoping he would go into remission.