- Flynn, Vince.
Separation of Power.
New York: Pocket Books, [2001] 2009.
ISBN 978-1-4391-3573-0.
-
Golly, these books go down smoothly, and swiftly too!
This is the third novel in the
Mitch Rapp
(warning—the article at this link contains minor spoilers)
series. It continues the “story arc” begun in
the second novel,
The Third Option (June 2009),
and picks up just two weeks after the conclusion of that
story. While not leaving the reader with a cliffhanger, that
book left many things to be resolved, and this novel sorts them out,
administering summary justice to the malefactors behind the scenes.
The subject matter seems drawn from current and recent headlines:
North Korean nukes, “shock and awe” air strikes in
Iraq, special forces missions to search for Saddam's weapons of
mass destruction, and intrigue in the Middle East. What makes this
exceptional is that this book was originally published in 2001—before!
It holds up very well when read eight years later although, of
course, subsequent events sadly didn't go the way the story envisaged.
There are a few goofs: copy editors relying on the spelling checker
instead of close proofing allowed a couple of places where
“sight” appeared where “site” was intended,
and a few other homonym flubs. I'm also extremely dubious that
weapons with the properties described would have been considered
operational without having been tested. And the premise of the final
raid seems a little more like a video game than the circumstances of the
first two novels. As one who learnt a foreign language in adulthood,
I can testify that it is extraordinarily difficult to speak
without an obvious accent. Is it plausible that Mitch can impersonate
a figure that the top-tier security troops guarding the bunker have
seen on television many times?
Still, the story works, and it's a page turner. The character of Mitch Rapp
continues to darken in this novel. He becomes ever more explicitly an
assassin, and notwithstanding however much his targets “need killin'”,
it's unsettling to think of agents of coercive government sent to
eliminate people those in power deem inconvenient, and difficult to
consider the eliminator a hero. But that isn't going to keep me from
reading the next in the series in a month or two.
See my comments on the first installment for additional
details about the series and a link to an interview with the author.
August 2009 