Title: Executive Power
Series:
Mitch Rapp #4
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages:
412
Words: 134K
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Synopsis: |
From Wikipedia & Me
CIA field agent Mitch Rapp's cover has been blown following his last assignment, preventing Saddam Hussein from obtaining nuclear weapons. Rapp receives public acknowledgment by the president in response to the latest Congressional leak to the media. Though the praise is of the highest quality, the President might as well have placed a bulls-eye on Rapp's chest and that of his loved ones by singling him out as the most important person in the fight against terrorism. The spotlight makes the former covert operator an ideal international target for eradication by terrorists as the symbol he has become.
Rapp moves from CIA operative duties to that of a counter-terrorism bureaucrat. As special advisor on counter-terrorism to CIA director Dr. Irene Kennedy, Rapp uncomfortably sits in an office. However, everything changes when radical Islamic terrorists ambush Navy SEALs on a top-secret rescue mission in the Philippines. The leak had to be in either the State Department or the Philippine diplomatic corps, but nobody knows for sure. However, worse yet is that someone is trying to cause a Jihad on a scale never before seen and that unknown invisible individual is close to achieving the goal with only a too visible Rapp in the way.
Rapp leads a team to avenge that loss by defeating the Philippine terrorist network that killed two SEAL team members and rescuing the American hostages. In order to successfully accomplish this mission he must keep its existence from the turncoats who betrayed those who went before him. The coincidental plot-line has forces plotting to upset the tenuous balance in the Middle East's geopolitical situation. A flamboyant Saudi Prince, who is banished from the Kingdom, elicits the help of a Palestinian assassin to murder the leaders of terrorist cells as well as Saudi and Palestinian Ambassadors in the hopes of dissolving US support for Israel and the eventual establishment of an official Palestinian state.
The assassin completes his tasks and has Israel, the US and the UN exactly where he wants them. Unfortunately for him, Rapp finds out who he is, what he has done and leaks some of the assassins talks with Israel to the Saudi Prince, who kills the assassin. Rapp then in turn kills the prince as an object lesson to other Saudi Royals to stay out of the “terrorism as a hobby” business.
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My Thoughts: |
This was another enjoyable read but the dual storylines never connected and so it almost felt like two different books mashed into one. I have to admit, I wish the author had simply concentrated on one or the other and expanded it to fill the book.
The palestinian assassin storyline could have been fantastic and I was waiting for him and Rapp to duke it out assassino a assassino style. So it was a letdown the way things went. The biggest thing is that Rapp's cover is permanently blown and so his days of secret assassinations are pretty much done. And yet there are a lot more books to go so I'm left wondering how the author is going to keep the interest going. I guess I'll just have to keep reading and find out, hahahahaa.
The author handles Rapp being recently married very well. I was wondering how he was going to deal with the relational side of things and he doesn't shy away from it. Rapp and his wife Anna have a huge blowout about him going back into the field, against orders no less and the fact that he'd been wounded made it even worse. Thankfully, Rapp isn't a pigheaded jerk and he cares about his wife and her feelings and realizes that he is going to have to change some things if he wants their marriage to work. It was so refreshing and encouraging to see a character in a book place the needs of their marriage before their own personal desires or using “work” as an excuse. We will have to see how this part of the overall storyline works out in future books because it can not turn into a cycle of Mitch Rapp doing what he wants, his wife blowing up at him, making up and then promising to do better.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this series is progressing. It is book 4 and I have no real complaints. The author hasn't pulled any boneheaded moves but simply tells a good action/adventure story. Keeping my fingers crossed he can keep that track record.
★★★✬☆
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