Vince Flynn was an author who lived in the Twin Cities and wrote 14 books in total, 13 of them centered around the character of Mitch Rapp, a terrorist hunter who, at the beginning of his career, worked as an off-the-books black-ops assassin. Flynn, through Rapps narratives in the books, made it clear that Rapp was not a spy. He did not gather intel or work as an analyst. He went after and killed bad guys.
Flynn's first novel was 1997's Term Limits, which was the only book he wrote that was not part of the Mitch Rapp series, although it did feature some of the characters who would become regulars in the series. It was also probably Flynn's most political book, as it had Scott Coleman killing corrupt politicians and warning the government that more would die if a law was not passed to protect the economy from cratering. The character of Coleman would be rewritten to omit his acts of domestic terrorism in the Rapp novels.
The Rapp series started with the Transfer of Power, which was published in 1999. In that novel, Rapp had been working as a terrorist hunter for about a decade. He learns of an attack on the White House, and much of the book is set with Rapp sneaking around the White House taking out the terrorists who are trying to get the President (fictional President Hayes) out of the bunker. Fans of the series 24 (which Flynn actually consulted on for a couple of seasons) will recognize a similar storyline being incorporated into one of the later seasons of the show, and it is clear that the character of Jack Bauer was based at least in part on Mitch Rapp.
The first four books in the series were set around Iraq being the primary threat to the US, and then, after real life happened in the form of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the remaining novels would be set against the backdrop of radical Islam and many of the plotlines focused on the aftermath of 9/11. After the 10th book in the series, Pursuit of Honor was published in 2009, Flynn wrote two prequel novels, American Assassin and Kill Shot, which fleshed out the details of how Rapp was recruited into the CIA and his early career, which had only been hinted at up to that point in the books. In 2010, Flynn would be diagnosed with an aggressive form of Prostate Cancer, and, unfortunately, passed away in 2013 (almost 10 years to the day as of this writing) at the age of 47 after finishing the novel, The Last Man, which brought the series back to the present day. Flynn started working on the next book, The Survivor but had only finished a few chapters before he died. Flynn's estate and his publisher commissioned Kyle Mills (who wrote books in the same genre) to finish The Suvivior, and Mills would be brought back to write several more books in the series.
My exposure to Flynn was through his appearances on the Dan Barrerrio afternoon radio show in the Twin Cities. Flynn would come on not only to promote his books but generally talk politics and local sports with Barrerrio. Flynn actually named a minor character in one of his books after Barrerrio. Flynn was certainly a conservative Republican, and his conservative viewpoint, especially when it came to the issue of torture, and whether the enhanced interrogation techniques approved by the Bush Administration amounted to torture, was present in the books. Flynn had the viewpoint that enhanced interrogation worked, which is debatable, as people like FBI agent Ali Soufan, who had interrogated many Al-Qeada members said it did not. Flynn also did not like that the Obama administration was investigating CIA personnel (and charging some) who were told during the Bush Administration that the enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. However, Flynn made it clear both in his interviews and the books that he was not a fan of politics or politicians in general, and some of the bad guys in the novels were actually Republican politicians.
Flynn was also pals with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, who were (and still are in Beck's case), in my opinion, two of the biggest pieces of shit in recent human history. While I never listened to his interviews on their shows, Flynn never struck me as being as nuts as Beck, Limbaugh, and their ilk. Of course, Flynn died before the whole t***p takeover of the Republican party, so we will never know if Flynn would have been one in the ranks of the sane (e.g., the "never t***pers") or if he would have become one of the cult members. But, given that he took a couple of shots at t***p in one of his books, I suspect Flynn would not have been a fan. And, I am sure that Flynn would not like the idea of book bans that we are seeing a decade after his death as I remember him saying that the Harry Potter novels (which have been caught up in some book bans) were perfectly fine for kids.
Overall, Flynn's Rapp series is a very well-written blend of action and suspense. Flynn was very much anti-political correctness and used Rapp's bluntness to present an in-your-face view of the very real threats to the US. And given that both Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh were fans of Flynn's books, they can certainly be enjoyed regardless of your political persuasion, even if you do not agree with Flynn's politics or every point of view expressed in the books.
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