American Assassin

February 7, 2011
With this 11th Mitch Rapp adventure, Flynn does something a little different. Taking a step back in time, he tells the story of how Rapp initially came to work for the CIA. As a young man, Rapp lost his fiancée in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Grief-stricken, he swears revenge on the terrorists. He's quickly recruited by the CIA and soon makes his first kill and is on his way to his first clandestine mission. George Guidall has a keen ear for dialogue, and his relaxed reading keeps Flynn's sometimes overheated prose and over-the-top plot grounded in a realm of believability. Still, he is more than capable of pulling out the stops when the action kicks in, keeping listeners on the edge of their seats once the bullets begin to fly. Flynn delivers his usual high-octane international thriller, but, in giving Rapp's backstory, he's infused it with more depth and heart than usual, and Guidall matches him beat for beat, proving himself a fine choice of storyteller. An Atria hardcover.

If you've never listened to a Vince Flynn novel, this is the best place to start. In this prequel, he introduces recent college graduate Mitch Rapp and explains how a young Irene Kennedy recruits him into the CIA. George Guidall does a fantastic job narrating the story; his character voices, coupled with the author's character descriptions, are so vivid. Most of the story deals with Rapp's black-ops training at the hands of Stan Hurley, followed by his first assassination assignment. The listener is taken on a whirlwind tour from the "CIA Farm" in Virginia to Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, and Lebanon. Vince Flynn fans will love this novel. B.C.E. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine