Enemy of the State

July 3, 2017
Mills’s exciting third contribution to the late Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series (after 2016’s Order to Kill) reinvigorates the well-worn Middle East conspiracy thriller plot. Saudi prince Talal bin Musaid, nephew of the ailing King Faisal, is using Saudi money to finance ISIS attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, Aali Nassar, the head of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate, is undermining the country’s monarchy and actively aiding chief terrorist Mullah Sayid Halabi. The American president, determined that the Saudi perfidy must be stopped, asks CIA officer Mitch to eliminate all high Saudi officials who are acting against the U.S. Mitch forms a small but deadly team, including Claudia Gould, his love interest; Grisha Azarov, the Russian agent who almost killed him in an earlier confrontation; and Kent Black, a U.S. Army sniper turned illegal arms dealer. Series fans and newcomers alike will watch in wonder as Mitch executes a clever plan that leads to an explosive climax. Agent: Sloan Harris, ICM.

April 1, 2017

It seems that after 9/11, the United States agreed to suppress evidence that leading Saudis facilitated the attack as long as Saudi Arabia punishes those responsible and keeps up a steady flow of oil. But now that King Faisal's nephew is evidently funding ISIS, Saudi commitment to its promise looks doubtful, and Mitch Rapp is asked to deliver a forceful if unorthodox reprimand. And for appearances' sake, he must quit the CIA and act on his own. Intense promotion.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2017
In the 16th installment of the series started by the late Flynn, author Mills (Order to Kill, 2016, etc.) continues CIA agent Mitch Rapp's deadly derring-dos.Fondly recalling the 9/11 attacks, Prince Talal bin Musaid believes that "America was a wounded animal. And he had become the lion." Meaning, of course, he doesn't know Mitch Rapp, who has killed so many bad guys it's a wonder there are any left in the world. The prince is the Saudi Arabian king's nephew, and he plans to help finance a large-scale Islamic State group attack inside the United States. Meanwhile, Rapp and his lady friend, Claudia, take an extended vacation so he can mend old wounds, but he soon decides that "having a life was a monumental pain in the ass." When he returns, U.S. President Alexander summons him to say he wants bin Musaid dead but that if Rapp is caught, he's on his own. So he goes from "the extreme edges of the U.S. intelligence apparatus" to "beyond black." He resigns from his CIA team and blames injuries from his last op, but then he starts his own rogue group. For $1 he hires Grisha Azarov, an ex-Russian agent whom series fans will recognize as "the most dangerous opponent [Rapp had] ever faced." And never mind that Azarov had nearly killed Rapp's CIA boss, Scott Coleman. Hey, it's nothing personal--they're all just killers with a job to do, and each "could be as good a friend as...deadly an enemy." The action is nearly nonstop as the body count builds. Oddly, an Iraqi colonel thinks the "natural state of humanity was chaos," and America was simply holding it at bay. A lily-livered reader might see an automatic weapon as a curious tool for staving off chaos, but said reader won't be following this series anyway.Fast-moving, fun, and not overly deep. But if the U.S. has a real-life version of Flynn and Mills' hero, that could be scary.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 15, 2017
The track record of writers who attempt to carry on a brand established by another writer has been mixed at best, but there's nothing mixed about what Kyle Mills has done with Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp characteroutstanding in every way. This time Rapp is forced to work on his own, without the backing of the CIA, if he is to stop a close relative of the king of Saudi Arabia from initiating an ISIS attack against the U.S. In fact, the president has tasked Rapp with this off-the-books assignment, but it quickly goes south, leaving Rapp and his team of mercenaries hunted by both the CIA and ISIS. Readers who love Flynn's series will feel at home with Mills' handling of the character and the various story elements. In the world of black-ops thrillers, Mitch Rapp continues to be among the best of the best.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)