#1 New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn introduces the young Mitch Rapp, as he takes on his first covert assignment—soon to be a major motion picture.
Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world…and then tragedy struck. Terrorists attacked innocent American citizens, and Rapp’s girlfriend was among the murdered. Two hundred and seventy souls perished on that cold December night, and thousands of family and friends were left searching for comfort. Mitch Rapp was one of them, but he was not interested in comfort. Now he wants retribution.
Two decades of cutthroat partisan politics have left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. America must confront Islamic terrorism with full force. Stansfield directs his protégée, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of command—men who do not exist.
What type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Six months of intense training have prepared him to take the war to the enemy’s doorstep, and he does so with brutal efficiency. Rapp starts in Istanbul, where he assassinates the Turkish arms dealer who sold the explosives used in the terrorist attack. Rapp then moves on to Hamburg with his team and across Europe, leaving a trail of bodies. All roads lead to Beirut, though, and what Rapp doesn’t know is that the enemy is aware of his existence and has prepared a trap. The hunter is about to become the hunted, and Rapp will need every ounce of skill and cunning if he is to survive the war-ravaged city and its various terrorist factions.
Behind the steely gaze of the nation’s ultimate hero is a young man primed to become an American assassin.
Good read I read one Vince Flynn book on a recommendation and was hooked. I like to read the first book of a series, but I realize this is not the first Mitch Rapp book. I bought this to see how Mitch Rapp got his start. I enjoyed it well enough and it the pace kept me entertained. There was enough character development to satisfy me, so I don’t understand what more the other critics needed. What a great loss that Mr. Flynn died too young.
Meh This book is my first read in the Mitch Rapp series. I’m a bit disappointed. The character development just is not terribly deep. There are good bones on the characters, just really not much meat. Tons of cliche – like the young badass rule-breaker butting heads with the aging mentor because the former reminds the latter of himself… Blah. In novels, I don’t necessarily mind hopping from one scenario to another, but it doesn’t work well when an author stops in the middle of a high-action or…
Iâm a Mitch Rapp fan and preconditioned to enjoy learning how it all began, but this wasnât the best in the series. The Mitch Rapp series first appeared on bookshelves in 1999 with the release of Transfer of Power. Most appropriately, that tale of Americaâs most skilled terrorist hunter began in media res and continued unabated for ten episodes. But then, based on reader urging, the author decided to go back in time and write two prequels to the original entry. And thus we now have American Assassin as the ânewâ first episode, and Kill Shot as the ânewâ second episode, pushing Transfer of Power from #1 to #3…