Book Review: Extreme Measures: (Mitch Rapp Series Book 11 Chronological Order; Book 9 Publication Order)

 

Extreme Measures is the 11th book in the prolific Mitch Rapp series of spy/political thriller/terrorist hunter novels written by Twin Cities author, Vince Flynn (if you read the books chronologically). If you read the books in publication order, it is the 9th book. It was published in 2008 as the public opinion tide of the war on terror had started to shift as the "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the domestic spying programs had become public. Those concepts are definitely themes of this book, with the Bush Administration's position that the enhanced interrogation techniques were not torture and were necessary to keep Americans safe presented through Mitch Rapp, and the other point of view, that it was torture and was ineffective was presented through the new political adversary of Rapp and the CIA, namely a senator named Barbara Lonsdale. A middle-of-the-road view was presented through a new character named Mike Nash, who was the head of the domestic spying program. Nash did not rough up detainees, but would not stop Rapp from doing so.

The book starts out with Rapp and Nash impersonating Navy officers in Afghanistan in order to interrogate a couple of high-level Taliban and Al-Qaeda members in order to try and track down and stop a terrorist cell that was going to be a part of three coordinated attacks in the US. They are discovered, Rapp is arrested, and the rest of the story plays out from there. Most of the book can be summarized as Rapp versus Congress (and more specifically, Lonsdale), with Lonsdale trying to get Rapp to incriminate himself during congressional testimony. The last few chapters have the action that the prior novels in the series are known for, and there are also a couple of side stories.  And, fans of Twin Cities sports radio will recognize that Flynn gave a shout-out to Dan Barreiro (who had Flynn on his show several times over the course of many years), naming one of the characters Joe Barreiro. 

The book has a similar tone and flow as the previous books in the series. Even though Flynn was a pretty staunch conservative, and definitely writes the character of Rapp with an a-political yet conservative viewpoint, he does not make all Democrats bad and all Republicans good. In the interviews I heard with him, Flynn did not seem to be particularly fond of politicians overall and tended to write them as greedy, amoral, and/or stupid, regardless of their party affiliation. The book is moderately long, a little over 400 pages, but it reads fairly quickly. I do not think it is the best book in the series (of those I have read), but it is still very good, and worth reading if you have liked the other books (which are definitely helpful to read, although you can follow the story even if you have not read the previous books) or are fans of the genre.