Book Review: Rapp Unleashed

Lethal Agent is a recent novel by Kyle Mills which continues the black ops thriller series created by the late Vince Flynn. Mitch Rapp is back at his never ending crusade to take as many terrorists off the board as he can. In this novel, he has to head off an effort by a ISIS leader to introduce a dangerous strain of engineered anthrax. Rapp has figured out that an adversary has a Mexican drug cartel on hand to help smuggle the virus into the United States. He decides to make it apparent that he has betrayed his country so he can infiltrate the cartel. If Rapp can get both an ISIS leader and a head of a drug cartel, so much the better. He also has to contend with a very ambitious female senator with her eyes on the Oval Office who is less than approving of Rapp’s attitude and methods. It’s a powder keg ready to explode with Rapp in the blast zone, right where he works best.

Vince Flynn died way too young, but Kyle Mills does well enough to keep Rapp in the fight. The body count at the hands of Rapp is quite high in this one. He just seems to get deadlier with age. There is nothing all that extraordinary in the novel other than Rapp getting mixed up with a drug cartel. It does seem that Mills likes to imagine what Rapp would do in the midst of all of the unsavory characters that the US seems to hesitate on in real life. The last Red War pitted Rapp against the Russians. It is kind of fun to see Rapp tangle with some of country’s enemies other than Islamic terrorists. Yes, it all gets rather far-fetched and a little formulaic at times.

Of course, Rapp meets the senator with the major beef, and that does not disappoint when it finally happens. The novel was written well before the global COVID 19 situation, but there were some striking similarities peppered throughout the story. It’s an enjoyable enough entry into the series, but I still miss Vince Flynn.

Next up, I will be getting to an author of whom I have been aware for some time but whose works I have yet to explore. Time to get introduced to Matthew Scudder in Lawrence Block’s When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.