Where Mitch Rapp Goes Roguish

Enemy of the State by Kyle Mills
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(My gut says 4.5 stars. Goodreads makes you choose. It costs nothing, so...)

This is a very good thriller. I am not, generally, a fan of thrillers, but this is the second book in the series that I have read so far--completely out of order--and I really enjoyed both. The action is literally almost nonstop, and it just keeps rolling. But I've read other thrillers with similar levels of action that didn't work at all for me. It isn't enough just to have one fight after another, one confrontation after another. I'm not sure what's the secret ingredient; I think the author (Kyle Mills in this case) makes the reader connect with the MC better than some other authors do.

I'm not quite sure. I think that's it.

Mitch Rapp is very good character and a lot of fun to watch. I know some people don't like protagonists like him, but I do--guys who are not superheroes, but are still very, very capable, performing at a level beyond what you think a real person can achieve. Some people think that's cheating or something. I don't. Is Sherlock too smart, too "overpowered," to be a good MC? Obviously not. Is John Wick too efficient, too good a shot? Doesn't seem to be the consensus. In modern TV, there's Morgan Gillory on High Potential, a woman who knows so much more than you think is possible--but that's part of what makes her such a cool character. (She's also kinda dysfunctional, if loving, so that makes her really fun.) Anyway, Mitch Rapp is like that. He's really good at his job--a great shot, very athletic, super poised, filled with ideas. He's not made of iron, though; he has limits, and often gets pretty badly injured. He's not Superman, but he is, more or less, Jason Bourne.

As always, he goes up against terrorists and other global threats. In this case, he's exposing and terminating the secret alliance between high-ranking Saudis and ISIS. He can't do that officially as a CIA agent, so he's forced to "retire" and go rogue (wink wink). It works. It's fun. As far as I can tell, the geopolitics are pretty accurate. (Where they aren't, I'm not the guy to notice.)

A key to the success of this character, IMO, is how he scrupulously avoids harming innocent people just doing their job. It's hard to support violence, even fictional violence on the page, and it requires the author to thread the needle--bad guys harming people are targets, but good guys or regular people must be protected. Real life isn't quite like that, unfortunately, but I don't think this series would work so well if Mitch Rapp wasn't so careful about protecting innocent people anywhere in the world.

In this essay....

Anyway, I liked it, and I've grabbed a couple more, still way out of order. It's always fun to find a new author to enjoy, especially in a genre that you (I) seldom read in.

Recommended.

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