Book Review - Memorial Day by Vince Flynn
Category Book Review
Whenever I'm flying home from a conference or vacation, I usually go looking for something recreational to read... no demands, not much thought, just action and entertainment. Coming back from Ireland last week, I picked up the novel Memorial Day by Vince Flynn. All things considered, it fit the bill perfectly. And it didn't hurt that I was actually *reading* it on Memorial Day, too...
Mitch Rapp is a trained operative who is very effective in getting information from those who have it. The results may not be pretty, but he realizes that there are few rules when dealing with terrorists. The CIA catches wind of a meeting involving high-level al Qaeda leaders, and they send Rapp in on a commando raid to try and bring back the terrorists for further questioning. For the most part, they succeed, but they find plans that point to a nuclear attack against certain cities in the United States. The facts are all verifiable, so now it's a search for the bomb material that might already be on US soil. Even worse, there may be more than one bomb. Any success in finding one has to be tempered against the real possibility of others still floating around. Rapp has to walk a fine line between legal rights and potential nuclear holocaust, and he's convinced that terrorists forfeited their rights some time back... But if he makes a mistake, literally hundreds of thousands of people will end up dying.
From an action and plausibility standpoint, the book was executed perfectly. Pacing was constant, and you didn't have to make any enormous "suspensions of reality" to follow the plot. I thought the ending was exceptionally well-done, also. The only quibble I had was with some of the secondary characters. A few of the early characters in the book seemed to be set up for significant roles in the plot, but in the end they weren't much of a factor. Or maybe by hour 14 on a plane, I was too numb to catch it. :)
If you're looking for something with action and reality, you'd probably enjoy this one. I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another one of his novels down the road.
Whenever I'm flying home from a conference or vacation, I usually go looking for something recreational to read... no demands, not much thought, just action and entertainment. Coming back from Ireland last week, I picked up the novel Memorial Day by Vince Flynn. All things considered, it fit the bill perfectly. And it didn't hurt that I was actually *reading* it on Memorial Day, too...
Mitch Rapp is a trained operative who is very effective in getting information from those who have it. The results may not be pretty, but he realizes that there are few rules when dealing with terrorists. The CIA catches wind of a meeting involving high-level al Qaeda leaders, and they send Rapp in on a commando raid to try and bring back the terrorists for further questioning. For the most part, they succeed, but they find plans that point to a nuclear attack against certain cities in the United States. The facts are all verifiable, so now it's a search for the bomb material that might already be on US soil. Even worse, there may be more than one bomb. Any success in finding one has to be tempered against the real possibility of others still floating around. Rapp has to walk a fine line between legal rights and potential nuclear holocaust, and he's convinced that terrorists forfeited their rights some time back... But if he makes a mistake, literally hundreds of thousands of people will end up dying.
From an action and plausibility standpoint, the book was executed perfectly. Pacing was constant, and you didn't have to make any enormous "suspensions of reality" to follow the plot. I thought the ending was exceptionally well-done, also. The only quibble I had was with some of the secondary characters. A few of the early characters in the book seemed to be set up for significant roles in the plot, but in the end they weren't much of a factor. Or maybe by hour 14 on a plane, I was too numb to catch it. :)
If you're looking for something with action and reality, you'd probably enjoy this one. I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another one of his novels down the road.
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Posted by skip At 03:32:18 On 04/06/2007 | - Website - |