My version: Hardback
Genre: Fiction, Espionage, Terrorism,
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
First published: 2022
ISBN: 978-1-3985-0080-8
Pages: 358
Bought
From the cover:
As a new generation of assassins comes together, the world turns against Mitch Rapp.
With President Anthony Cook convinced Mitch Rapp is a threat, Irene Kennedy is forced to negotiate a truce: Rapp must stay out of the country while Cook is in control of the White House. In return, they won’t make moves against him. But the new C.I.A., director has a different plan.
Going after his partner, Claudia Gould, puts Rapp right where Cook wants him. As her cover is blown and enemies from her past resurface, the race to neutralise them is on. But a new kind of killer, a shadowy group known only as Legion, is on her tail. They can’t be called off and they won’t back down until their target is dead, no matter how long it takes. No one has ever been able to identify them. In fact, no one is even completely sure they exist…
Speaking as one of the world’s leading experts on all things Mitch Rapp books, I’m gonna have to come straight out and say that this is the best of the Kyle Mills continuation of Vince Flynn’s series – so far. In fact, it’s up there in quite a similar way, to Flynn’s first, and actually non-Rapp novel, the superb Term Limits. It’s that good.
If that means nothing to you, where ya been? I’ll put it simply first;
If you want to be reminded of why you read books, read Oath of Loyalty.
It has everything you could want and everything you look for in a modern thriller. Fast paced, great, effective writing and a plot that both makes sense and made me punch the air with a “yes!” at one point. Can’t say fairer than that.
It has the problem all modern thrillers face – how up-to-date can it be? It can use modern technology, stretch the limits of such by making us think that ‘that sort of thing’ the (US) military have access to. But, it can’t go too up-to-date and get to dealing with commentary of the (US) political scene as it is today, but it comes close, if my reading of it is right. I don’t think there can be read into it any criticism of the current state of the union, though – I mean, Republicans might be idiots, but they still buy books, after all. Books like this. Presumably those that can read do anyway. Then again, there’s the Rest Of The World to consider. And even we’re gonna balk at the President of The United States getting his bollocks handed to him on a plate by Mitch Rapp. So, another way has to be found, no matter how much you, and Rapp, might wish he would just go and do it.
As for Mich Rapp. He’s surely getting on a bit now, isn’t he? How much longer can he go on saving the world? I think there’s an element of being up-to-date and still timeless. In that Rapp isn’t abiding by the same rules of time as us in the real world. It still works though. All in all, Mills’ Mitch Rapp is now, dare I say it, a more nuanced character than Vince Flynn left him. So Mills is writing Rapp, getting perhaps not so much older, but not as young as he was, all the experience with just a hint of “too old for this shit” cynicism seeping in at the edges. In short, just right.
The ‘shadowy group’ business is done well, but perhaps not as threateningly as the blurb up top would have you believe. I expected a bit ore from this angle, though the characters all seem to find it/them pretty threatening and the ending wouldn’t be what it is without that threat. Overall, Mitch Rapp embodies the archetype of a determined, skilled, and morally ambiguous protagonist who serves as the vanguard against terrorism in all the novels. Here, his sense of justice is called on, along with the others acknowledging the debt a grateful nation owes him, while grappling with the moral implications of his actions and intentions.
So, before I lose you completely, I’ll say that Oath of Loyalty is a book that Vince Flynn would be proud of.
You can buy Oath Of Loyalty from Amazon
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