Vince Flynn

Vince Flynn in 2008

"I'm the Angel of Death, and it's Judgement Day!"

—Mitch Rapp, in one of his less patient moments.

Vince Flynn is the author of the Mitch Rapp series, a series about a deep-cover agent for the CIA who goes into other countries and assassinates terrorists with extreme prejudice.

Works written by Vince Flynn include:

Currently,^[when?] there are twelve books in the series proper:

• Transfer of Power
• The Third Option
• Separation of Power
• Executive Power
• Memorial Day
• Consent to Kill
• Act of Treason
• Protect and Defend
• Extreme Measures
• Pursuit of Honor
• American Assassin
• Kill Shot

And his first book, Term Limits, does not feature Mitch, although some of its other characters would appear later in the series. It deals with Michael O'Rourke, an up-and-coming congressman who has to find out who is targeting extremely liberal politicians and killing them with eerie precision.

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Vince Flynn's work provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Donnatella Rahnn, Italian/Israeli assassin. When someone was trying to kill her, she tore his ear off with her teeth.
• Black and Grey Morality: Pretty much of necessity.
• Booby Trap
• Career Killers (Most people with guns.)
• The Chessmaster: Mitch becomes this, after a politician exposes his identity. Also, pretty much every Big Bad in the series (that is, the people who take more than one book to die).
• The Cracker: Marcus Dumond, though he never used his hacking skills for evil, he just used them to rob some New York banks. Though he now uses his abilities for hacking foreign governments' computers.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: A few.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Almost anything with Rapp.
• Did Not Do the Research: Averted. Hard. Vince Flynn has buddies who work in the places he talks about.
• Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Named as such.
• Evil Chancellor: Pretty much every Big Bad in the series.
• The Film of the Book: Consent to Kill will be the first MR book to get a big screen adaption.
• Expy: Amatullah, for the real-life Ahmedinejad.
• Fox News Liberal: Anna Reilly, despite ostensibly being an outspoken liberal, is a lifelong gun owner and at the end of the day is proud that her husband offs enemies of the state for a living.
  • Minister Ashani, after a fashion. Despite being the "good Iranian" present to balance the ensemble and show that not all Iranians are terrorist caricatures, this is taken to the point that from the very beginning he clearly feels afflinity to the ideas and methods of the United States and resents the actions and motivations of his own superiors and countrymen. Near the end of Protect and Defend there's a scene, ostensibly for character development (the "they've gone to far so I'm switching sides" kind), where he realizes that his fellow leaders will ruin his country and the best, sensible option is to stop fighting America and do what America wants. But there's no change as he's basically been thinking that way the whole book already. Despite ostensibly being a Type IV Anti villian, he represents the good guys (Americas) interests so much it's almost as if he were one of them.
• Gambit Roulette: Lots, by good guys and bad guys alike.
  • Especially with Hank Clark, who goes to incredibly elaborate lengths to burn the CIA. The grand payoff? Increased publicity for himself so he can start a presidential campaign, with no guarantee he'll win it. That's about it.
• Good Cop, Bad Cop: The Good Cop is Mike Nash and the Bad Cop is Mitch Rapp, in Extreme Measures.
• Good-Looking Privates: Insofar as we can imagine, given that it is a non-visual medium, after all. However, if the movie ever gets made, you can probably expect this.
• Green Eyes: Anna has 'em. A pair so stunning, they knock Mitch off his one-track mind in the middle of a national calamity in Transfer of Power.
• Hannibal Lecture: Mitch, to the terrorists on what the Koran says about what they're doing.
• Heroic BSOD: Mitch, after Anna's death.
• Hitman with a Heart (Mitch, again.)
• It's Raining Men: The military does this to insert commandos into the White House in Transfer of Power.
• I Work Alone
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Should be called the Mitch Rapp Interrogation Technique. In Extreme Measures, he wraps a wet prison uniform around a terrorist's head and tasers it. It spread out the shock so that it wasn't lethal, but still very painful.
• Karma Houdini: Mitch, to the politicians. Stu Garret thinks he got this. He is very, very wrong.
  • Most of the villians, for that matter. If they escape the finale they're almost always killed in the epilogue. If the terrorist act came partway through the book, the rest of it will be spent hunting them down.
    • Arguably Scott Coleman. He kills four senators, including the House Speaker, and threatens to kill the president in an attempt to intimidate the government into following his agenda. He gets off without any punishment and goes on to make tons of money as a private contractor working for...the government, of all things.
• Killed Off for Real: Anna Reilly
• Military Brat: Irene Kennedy.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Understandably inverted in Transfer of Power: the Author's Note mentions that some of the included details are faked for the protection of the President and of the Secret Service.
• Not So Stoic: Mitch finds out that the bomb blast that severely injured him has also killed his wife, immediately after he wakes up in a hospital. His boss (who already knows of the death) arrives to give him this news, but her hesitancy makes it painfully clear to him. Once she finally confirms it out loud, he takes it pretty badly and has to be restrained and tranquilized. Then, all he can do is shed a tear...
• One Steve Limit: Played with, in Transfer of Power. The characters must consult with Mossad before they can ascertain whether a certain terrorist they've confirmed to be inside the White House is either an Iraqi vault-breaker or a zealous Palestinian youth. Played straight, however, in every other example.
• Omniglot: Mitch speaks Arabic, Persian, and a little bit of Urdu and Pashto.
• Perp Sweating
• Prequel: American Assassin
• Properly Paranoid: Mitch. It's for a good reason.
• Rabid Cop (Mitch
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: In the first book when Mitch is holed up in a secret closet off the President's personal bedroom (It Makes Sense in Context) and is about to witness the raping of a hostage by one of the terrorists, it is stated that Mitch's anger at this violation so contorts his expression that his partner for this whole mission does not even recognize him anymore.
  • Furthermore, he knowingly jeopardizes the security of his mission to rescue the President of the United States and some fifty hostages being held captive in order to avert the rape. But that's not all - the commanders watching from the Pentagon tacitly agree that they themselves would have done the same so they don't get mad at him. It ends up working out for him anyway.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Events and issues from Real Life (9/11, Iranian nuclear ambition, etc.) form the background for the books.
• Rescue Romance: Mitch and Anna, after Mitch rescues her from an Attempted Rape by one of the extremists holding the White House hostage in Transfer of Power
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Mitch, after Anna is killed.
• Spy Fiction (Stale Beer)
• Strawman Political: At least one per book, of the liberal persuasion.
• Too Dumb to Live:Several times in the series Rapp is attacked by a politician or bureaucrat (inevitably liberal) when they learn he's been abusing prisoners or somesuch. Rapp repeatedly waits a few minutes to reveal said prisoner is clearly guilty and gave up valuable information, making said politician(s) look like an idiot. Everyone is always stunned as nobody ever considers that Rapp, with his near perfect record of success, might actually have a reason. Gets particularly silly later in the series when this subplot has played out several times already and nobody seems to remember what happened the last time Rapp was caught.
  • Most of the villian's plans to embarrass the USA/CIA usually have giant holes in them that are discovered and broadcast on TV within a few days, at most.
  • In Extreme Measures, terrorist leader Karim kills a CIA spy, then, being rather Genre Savvy, decides to launch his attack immediately. Then he inexplicably goes full retard and leaves the body in a car and sets it on fire, ensuring it's found within hours and doing nothing to prevent the CIA from identifying it, rather then, say, leaving it in a basement to rot. This ensures that Rapp is alerted to the terrorist presence, though he knew they were in the city and the spy's dissapearance should have been warning enough, making the whole sequence doubly dumb.
• Torture Always Works: Subverted; terrorists will lie under interrogation, but a fairly common topic of discussion by the book is how to see through the lies.
  • Subverted? Almost always played straight. It's one of the "two rules of torture" that are sometimes mentioned. It even works on the good guys.
• Violence Really Is the Answer:a recurring theme, particularly prominant in Term Limits.
• With Due Respect: To be expected. They're political thriller novels about a spy who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Also, politicians often play the roles of bureaucrats who only want to conserve their own power so any operatives featured in the novel are often put in the position of this trope.
  • In the first book, Transfer of Power, it's used by Mitch and Lt. Commander Dan Harris in the "I respectfully disagree" flavor to their own respective superiors within a chapter of each other.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Mitch feels the main difference between him and the terrorists he hunts is that Mitch is unwilling to harm/kill innocent civilians whereas terrorists make no such distinction.