TITLE: Protect and DefendAUTHOR: Vince Flynn
STARTED: March 1, 2008
FINISHED: March 4, 2008
PAGES: 416
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: Mitch Rapp ran his hand along her smooth, naked thigh, up to her waist, and then down along her flat stomach.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] After taking care of a loose end from Act of Treason(2006), Mitch Rapp looks into the destruction of Iran's secret nuclear weapons facility in bestseller's Flynn's predictable eighth thriller to feature the counterterrorism agent. Given the absence of any indication of either a U.S. or an Israeli air strike, Rapp takes the opportunity to persuade the U.S. administration to plot an operation to destabilize the fanatical Iranian regime by having an Iranian dissident group claim responsibility for what he suspects was an inside job by an Israeli spy. When the Iranian government sinks one of its own ships and blames the U.S., Rapp and CIA chief Irene Kennedy travel to Iraq to try to defuse the crisis, only to fall victim to an ambush (reminiscent of one in Tom Clancy's A Clear and Present Danger) that results in Kennedy's abduction. Rapp races the clock to rescue his boss before she's tortured into revealing what she knows. Despite a backstory replete with personal loss, Rapp comes across as a one-dimensional killing machine, willing to do whatever needs doing to complete the mission.
THOUGHTS: I don't think I like Mitch Rapp anymore. I love this series, but Rapp is beginning to grate on me. He spent this novel being whiny and stubborn. There were times I found myself screaming, "STF already!" He sees things now solely in terms of black and white, right and wrong and refuses to acknowledge any other way but his. In some ways, he was beginning to annoy me in his pigheadedness. I like arrogant men, but Rapp was just an asshole in this one. I can understand his emotions, but he just made me want to smack him.
Otherwise, Flynn did a rather good job of keeping the plot afloat. His storyline was inventive and I was impressed by the technical detail of this book.
RATING: 5/10 [Meh.]
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