CAPTURE OR KILL

Bentley’s first Mitch Rapp thriller in the series begun by the late Vince Flynn and continued by Kyle Mills.

In 2011, saboteurs have blown up an Iranian nuclear facility, and Iran swears vengeance. Against whom, they don’t know yet. The head of Iranian intelligence, Azad Ashani, is dying of cancer and wants to both prevent a calamitous war and protect his family. But he sees his only chance as making a deal with the devil: "Malikul Mawt. The Angel of Death." Mitch Rapp. Mitch surely merits that sobriquet, yet the author makes clear that the CIA operative is “neither a sociopath nor a troubled soul” but more like a plumber just doing his job, unclogging drains. Lots of drains. “Mitch was created to hunt his nation’s enemies on their turf,” that’s all. Over the nearly two dozen books in the series, he’s killed enough bad guys to fill a small phone book. His persona is a bit over the crest of believability: “Managing Rapp wasn’t so much riding a bridleless mustang as trying to surf a tsunami.” “The man seemed born to kill terrorists in the same way in which Eddie Van Halen had been born to play guitar.” And to borrow a phrase, he jumps the shark when he plunges headfirst down a waterfall. But hey, what’s a hero for? He works in coordination with Army Rangers to “capture or kill” a high-value target—Osama bin Laden—over the Pakistani border in Abbottabad. The action hardly ever lets up, so Rapp’s legion of readers will find plenty to worry about—and enjoy. Author Bentley has successfully spun yarns in the Tom Clancy universe, and here he moves smoothly into Vince Flynn’s. Their writing styles and that of Kyle Mills are indistinguishable, as if they could slip into each other’s skins. There’s even a passing nod to Mark Greaney’s Gray Man, another plague on the world’s bad guys.

Action junkies will gobble this up.