I am not sure when or where I got this book – some exchange library somewhere – but I was lucky to find the first book in a long (25 books) series featuring Mitch Rapp, the “American assassin.” I will probably read more books in this series because I enjoyed this one very much. Rapp is an interesting guy – a natural-born assassin – in the mold of Jack Reacher and John Puller. These guys are all larger-than-life and share an ability to triumph when faced with overwhelming odds and survive life-threatening situations. Complete fantasy, of course, but so what? They make for good adventure reading.
In this book Mitch Rapp is recruited for a super-secret project to develop American assassins that can be deployed to deal with situations that defy diplomatic solution. Unlike the other 6 men in the program, Mitch has no military training. But he does have martial arts training and soon proves that he can handle challenges from the other candidates and the instructor himself.
His first assignment, after he completed his training, was the assassination of an international arms dealer in Istanbul, Turkey. He arrives first and is ordered to wait for two others – his instructor and another neophyte assassin. But Mitch sees an opportunity and takes it, killing the dealer while he is walking his dog. Mitch escapes without detection and the news of the assassination creates a stir in the international community – who did it? Speculation included Russia and Islamic groups as well as the Americans. But no one knew with certainty.
Except for his superiors who were split between outrage for ignoring orders and admiration for completing the job so quickly and efficiently.
The admiration wins out and he is given a second assignment – the assassination of a Swiss banker who controls funds for terrorist groups. That is a team job and is executed successfully, leaving the wife and his dogs unharmed. But they manage to obtain the information needed to access the bank accounts and drain them of over $40 million. How the terrorist groups react to the loss of the money and how the Russians get involved is the rest of the book.
Very interesting character, very well written. I will look for #2 in the series.
9 out of 10.