The Third Option, Volume 4

I have now read all but one of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series. Five in all, I think. I did not read them in the order they were written. Much to Flynn's credit, they don't have to be read in order. Each volume stands alone. Mitch Rapp is an assassin, a part of the Orion Team, a clandestine effort known only to a few in the U.S. government. The President,a very few people at the CIA who povide covert assistance and a very few members of Congress. The purpose of the Orion Team is to bring the war on terror to the terrorists with surgical, fatal strikes. Mitch Rapp is the chosen instrument and he is very good at his job. But Mitch wants out. He has met and fallen in love with Anna Reilly, a television reporter. This will be Rapp's last job, he thinks. The assasination of a German Count who has done business with Saddam once too often. The CIA has provided two helpers for the task. One of them tries to murder Rapp seconds after he has dispatched the German. (...) The plot, as it is with all Flynn novels, is convoluted with double-crosses as common as snow in the mountains. When Flynn writes a political thriller, it is indeed political. He is hard on appeasers and obviously sees many politicians as self-serving and even traitorous. Flynn's Mitch Rapp and all the other characters are richly drawn. They are all believable: good guys and bad guys alike. The suspense is tight on every page. And the body count grows with every page. Flynn is, in my opinion, the absolute master of the political thriller. "The Third Option" is, again in my opinion, a masterpiece of the genre. Jerry

THE THIRD OPTION by Vince Flynn is the type of thriller that fans of the espionage/political intrigue genre are always on the lookout for. The novel deals with Mitch Rapp who is a member of the CIA's highly secret Orion Team. He's their top assassin. When the first option of diplomacy and the second option of military force fail, the United States turns to its third option of covert action as a way of dealing with terrorist's attacks. It is our last option of fighting back, and it usually involves assassination. Mitch Rapp is on the verge of resigning from the CIA. He has met the woman of his dreams and wants to live a normal life. He decides, however, to take one last assignment. His job will be to go into Germany as part of a team and assassinate a German industrialist who has been selling materials for building a nuclear device to one of our country's leading enemies. What Rapp isn't aware of is that he's to be killed after he completes his mission. When the German police find his body next to that of the industrialist, the CIA will be publicly blamed, thus ending the career of Irene Kennedy, head of the department that runs the Orion Team and who is slated to take over as Director of the CIA. Rapp isn't an easy man to eliminate. The people assigned to take him out fail in their attempt. Returning to the United States by covert means, Rapp is determined to track down the individuals who tried to kill him and to extract the names of those in the U.S. Government who authorized the hit. Rapp doesn't care how high up the list of names goes; if he has his way, he will kill every last one of the people involved in this conspiracy. THE THIRD OPTION has the ring of authenticity about it that strongly reminded me of the earlier novels of Tom Clancy. Its author has a real working knowledge of the Central Intelligence Agency and is able to take the reader deep behind the scenes of intelligence gathering and covert assassination, not to mention the dynamics that come into play as the Agency struggles to survive the manipulations of Congress and the President of the United States. Though the plot of this novel is complex in nature, there is certainly enough action to keep us diehard fans of the "spy" genre glued to our seats as we try to desperately guess the ending. I will say this about the final outcome; as in real life, the bad guys don't always get what's coming to them. I have to also say that I really enjoyed the character of Mitch Rapp. Here is a man with a strict code of honor who isn't afraid to kill in order to protect himself or his loved ones. This is certainly the type of guy you want as a friend and not as an enemy. I hope the author will continue to write future novels with Mitch Rapp in them. He's got a great character here. Anyway, if you want to enter the New Year with some fun reading, pick up a copy of THE THIRD OPTION, then check out the first two novels by Vince Flynn, TERM LIMITS & TRANSFER OF POWER.

Vince Flynn has done it again. He has proven that he is the next Tom Clancy. The "Third Option" continues to show he is a master of action/suspense/political thriller novels. All three of his novels are page turners that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Once you pick up one you will not want to put it down. I give this novel along with his other two(Term Limits and Transfer of Power) five stars.

Vince Flynn surpasses the strong efforts of his first two novels, "Term Limits" and "Transfer of Power" with a powerful, edge of your seat story of espionage, terrorism, and suspense.Mitch Rapp, the hero of "Transfer of Power", is once again the central focus of this novel. I find Flynn's ability to make Rapp almost superhuman at times, and confused and vulnerable at other times to be very endearing. The characters surrounding Rapp add depth to the storytelling. The action is great, the ability of Flynn to continually and credibly sew "seeds of distrust" keep you glued to the pages, and the plot line is filled with enough twists and turns to keep even a moderate fan of the genre interested. Finally, Flynn presents the episodes with enough technical detail to be believable, but not in the extraordinarily boring manner of a Tom Clancy. All in all, if I had three thumbs, they'd all be up for the writer and this novel!

THE THIRD OPTION is the dark, dangerous world of covert operations where governments use agents to kill their enemies without sanctioning their activities. Mitch Rapp, a member of the Orion Team, has abided by the rules of the game for a ecade. Now that he is in love, Mitch wants to resign after years as a atriotic universal soldier.His last assignment calls for him to assassinate a German industrialist helping Hussein rebuild the Iraqi nuclear arsenal. After completing the mission, one of his peers tries to eliminate Mitch, but fails to kill the operative. Alone and hunted, Mitch manages to return to the States to attempt to uncover the identity of the individual paying the assassination bills. When his enemy grabs his beloved girlfriend, Mitch vows to kill everyone who might be involved even if it means raiding the Halls of Congress and the White House.Vince Flynn, author of TERM LIMITS and TRANSFER OF POWER, writes another powerful political espionage thriller that keeps reader's interest from the first page to the last line. There are numerous interesting subplots augmenting the story line, but the heart of THE THIRD OPTION remains the protagonist. Mitch wants to come into the heat of love and out from the cold, but struggles to bury his previous life without it interring him. From almost the onset, readers know who the villains are, but that does not slow down this thrill a page novel.Harriet Klausner