Book Review - Vince Flynn / Kyle Mills - The Survivor

The Survivor

By Vince Flynn / Kyle Mills

Publisher: Emily Bestler Books / Atria Books

Release Date: October 6th, 2015

Virginia, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan and Switzerland. #MitchRappIsBack , the hashtag that has been sweeping social media is now a reality because Mitch Rapp IS back! And given the international itinerary of locales whereThe Survivor takes readers to, Rapp and his cohorts aren’t exactly resting on their laurels.

The Survivor picks up pretty much right after the end of Flynn’s previous novel, The Last Man, with Rapp tasked with tracking down a vanquished enemy’s secret files that could hand America’s enemies the information that could bring down global intelligence in a heartbeat.

A Pakistani military man, secretly a terrorist plotting to bring down the US and its allies, is also searching for the files and the battle is joined to see who will get to them first. Along the way, each main figure must outwit and outlast the other as well as a number of roadblocks that get thrown up in their path. For Rapp, that includes dealing with a face from the past he’d rather destroy as well as a member of the US Senate that is out to get both Rapp and his boss at the CIA, Dr. Irene Kennedy.

The book spins its tale quite adeptly, with the international intrigue and political maneuvering sharing time with perfectly plotted and paced action scenes that reinforce Rapp’s reputation as the “Iron Man”, an unstoppable force of nature for the clandestine service. And there is definitely some nice brief humorous moments including one involving the choice of utensils to stab someone.

This book was an unfinished project left behind by author Vince Flynn when he passed away in 2013. I am normally not in favor of an author’s work being finished by another writer, much less continuing onward with a given series. But when it was announced that Kyle Mills had been selected to finish The Survivor as well as write two more novels in the Rapp series, I found that belief challenged.

I don’t know how well Mills might be known by other readers, but I was a huge fan of his FBI agent Mark Beamon novels and I immediately knew he could do justice to finishing the work of Vince Flynn.

And here in The Survivor, that is something that came to fruition. While I’ve seen it mentioned by a number of other people writing full reviews or simply tweeting about the book, the statement that you can’t really tell where Flynn’s work ends and the finishing touches put on by Kyle Mills begins is indeed a perfect, albeit simple, analysis of the quality of the writing.

While there is a strong built in audience for Mitch Rapp stories, Kyle Mills does a great job of breathing life back into the character that most readers probably thought was gone for good. And while I wouldn’t want to commit literary blasphemy on too epic a scale, I think Mills will do a fantastic job of charting new paths for Rapp in the future installments of the series to come.

I don’t know if that means my thinking is translating to the idea of Mills making Mitch Rapp “his own” or not, but I do think that given the story unleashed here in The Survivor, the world of Mitch Rapp is in strong stead with Mills on board and readers around the world, from the average member of the general public to the world leaders who are fans of Vince Flynn’s work can be assured that Mitch Rapp is indeed back…and as good as he ever was.

The Survivor is a superb thriller and one of the best reads of 2015, another testament to the quality of writing from Vince Flynn with the assist from the outstanding Kyle Mills.