Act of Treason [Paperback]

Vince Flynn (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 28, 2007

The fallout from a horrific Washington explosion has just begun -- and so has CIA superagent Mitch Rapp's hunt for a killer with a personal agenda.

In the final weeks of a fierce presidential campaign, a motorcade carrying candidate Josh Alexander is shattered by a car bomb. Soon after the attack, Alexander is carried to victory by a sympathy vote, but his assailants have not been found. When CIA director Irene Kennedy and Special Agent Skip McMahon receive damaging intelligence on Washington's most powerful players, they call o n Mitch Rapp -- the one man reckless enough to unravel a global network of contract killers on an explosive mission that leads back to the heart of our nation's capital...and the inner sanctum of the Oval Office.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tom Clancy fans who have not yet discovered bestseller Flynn (Consent to Kill) and his maverick, do-whatever-it-takes hero, CIA operative Mitch Rapp, will find this page-turner right up their alley. When an al-Qaeda–style bomb attack on the motorcade of the Democratic presidential candidate, Georgia governor Josh Alexander, in Washington, D.C., a month before the November election kills the candidate's wife and several Secret Service agents, Rapp uses all the tools at his disposal to investigate the claim of the now discredited head of the protective detail that a mysterious figure in a red baseball cap set off the fatal bomb. Rapp soon finds that the motive for the outrage may be personal rather than political. While the underlying plot elements require a great deal of suspended disbelief, Flynn will pull most readers along with his taut writing and plausible vision of the real work of the intelligence community. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Tom Clancy fans who have not yet discovered Vince Flynn and his maverick, do-whatever-it-takes hero, CIA operative Mitch Rapp, will find this page-turner right up their alley.... Taut writing and [a] plausible vision of the real work of the intelligence community." -- Publishers Weekly

"Act of Treason is a fun, finger-blistering page-turner." -- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

"The suspenseful conclusion of this terrific story is exciting, satisfying, and totally unexpected. Act of Treason has what one desires in a thriller -- a multilayered and complex plot full of twists and turns with a charismatic main character." -- The Roanoke Times (VA)

"CIA operative Mitch Rapp is back. And he's as fearless as ever." -- Saint Paul Pioneer Press (MN)

"Nonstop action [with a] surprising twist." -- The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (FL)

"Whether you're a fan eagerly awaiting the next installment or a curious reader wondering what all the fuss is about, Act of Treason will make your day." -- FrontPageMagazine.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; Premium edition (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416542264
• ISBN-13: 978-1416542261
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (284 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The fifth of seven children, Vince Flynn was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1966. He graduated from the St. Thomas Academy in 1984, and the University of St. Thomas with a degree in economics in 1988.

After college he went to work for Kraft General Foods where he was an account and sales marketing specialist.

In 1990 he left Kraft to accept an aviation candidate slot with the United States Marine Corps. One week before leaving for Officers Candidate School, he was medically disqualified from the Marine Aviation Program, due to several concussions and convulsive seizures he suffered growing up. While trying to obtain a medical waiver for his condition, he started thinking about writing a book. This was a very unusual choice for Flynn since he had been diagnosed with dyslexia in grade school and had struggled with reading and writing all his life.

Having been stymied by the Marine Corps, Flynn returned to the nine-to-five grind and took a job with United Properties, a commercial real estate company in the Twin Cities. During his spare time he worked on an idea he had for a book. After two years with United Properties he decided to take a big gamble. He quit his job, moved to Colorado, and began working full time on what would eventually become Term Limits.

Like many struggling artists before him, he bartended at night and wrote during the day. Five years and more than sixty rejection letters later he took the unusual step of self-publishing his first novel. The book went to number one in the Twin Cities, and within a week had a new agent and two-book deal with Pocket Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint.

Term Limits hit the New York Times bestseller list in paperback and started a trend for all of Flynn's novels. Since then, his books have become perennial bestsellers in both paperback and hardcover, and he has become known for his research and prescient warnings about the rise of Islamic Radical Fundamentalism and terrorism. Read by current and former presidents, foreign heads of state, and intelligence professionals around the world, Flynn's novels are taken so seriously one high-ranking CIA official told his people, "I want you to read Flynn's books and start thinking about how we can more effectively wage this war on terror."

October 2007 marked another milestone in Flynn's career when his ninth political thriller, Protect and Defend, became a #1 New York Times bestseller. A few months later, CBS Films optioned the rights for Flynn's Mitch Rapp character with the intention of creating a character-based, action-thriller movie franchise. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who previously launched the Harry Potter and Matrix films as head of production at Warner Bros., and Nick Wechsler (We Own the Night, Reservation Road) will produce the films.

Flynn's 10th hardcover, Extreme Measures, was published in October 2008. It was also a #1 New York Times bestseller. His most recent novel, Kill Shot, was published in Fenbruary 2012.

The Mitch Rapp story begins with American Assassin, followed by Kill Shot Transfer of Power, The Third Option, Separation of Power, Executive Power, Memorial Day, Consent to Kill, Act of Treason, Protect and Defend, Extreme Measures and Pursuit of Honor.

Influences: Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gore Vidal, and John Irving. Flynn lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and three children.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#61 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#8 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction

#9 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#13 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#16 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#16 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

#8 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction

#9 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#13 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#16 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#16 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 100 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid entry in the series October 11, 2006

By Jeffrey S. Stanley

Format:Hardcover

Well, I just finished reading Act of Treason. I have been highly anticipating this book and did thoroughly enjoy reading it for the most part. I have to say I was disappointed with the ending and was expecting much more from Vince Flynn. I will not give away any spoilers from the book but I will say that as I read through the book, I couldn't help but get a feeling almost as if Vince Flynn was kind of trying to get the reader of this book ready for a transition. I didn't feel that Mitch Rapp was carried through this book as he has been in the series since he was introduced. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe we are being given the first stage of withdrawing Mitch from the Vince Flynn novels. I certainly hope not but there were some nuances in the book that gave me that feeling. It was good to see some of the guys from previous novels back in such as Scott Coleman and his team. After reading Consent to Kill I had to wonder what direction Rapp would be taken in. Mitch is being portrayed as getting older and while still at the peak of his game, I can only wonder how much longer he will be kept at that level. The first few reviews of this book have thoroughly stated much of the book so I won't go into repeating statements. With a new administration to deal with, I hope Mitch can get back to the action that carried him through his first few novels and made for such a page turning read. If you are a fan of Mitch Rapp, you most certainly won't be disappointed with this new book, atleast that is until you get to the end.

52 of 59 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Nearly as Exciting as Flynn's Previous Work October 10, 2006

By Martin Andrade

Format:Hardcover

During the heat of a presidential election a terrorist group in the Middle East threatens violence to try to influence the results. Some weeks before the election is to take place a car bomb goes off near one of the presidential candidate's motorcades and kills the wife of the presidential candidate and dozens of innocent bystanders. The voters decide that they won't be pushed around by terrorists and vote in the presidential candidate who was attacked. Mitch Rapp and his friends at the CIA are left to uncover the plot as ruthless and dangerous people are afoot. Sounds like a great thriller but Act of Treason is not up to the standard we expect from Vince Flynn.

Vince Flynn deserves a lot of credit for an almost prophetic handle on the continuing war on terror. Before the 9-11 attacks Flynn had written novels about militant Wahhabism attacking the United States. While on the book tour for his last book, Consent to Kill, Vince Flynn talked about secret CIA prisons where Iraqi and Afghani insurgents and terrorists where interrogated outside the view of the public eye. A year later there were stories in the popular press about those same secret prisons. Flynn has been a bestselling author thanks to his research and his connections to U.S. servicemen out in the field. He combines his solid research with a great storytelling ability which typically makes all of his novels thrilling page turners.

Act of Treason abandons some of the formulas that have worked so well for Mr. Flynn in the past. Vince plays around with different themes. In his past works there was the "ticking time bomb" mentality which has driven much of the motivations for the protagonist Mitch Rapp. Flynn also tries to tackle the controversies that plague presidential administrations as they close, especially presidential pardons. In fact, much of the plot of the book involves pardons in a thinly veiled discussion of all the last minute pardons of the Clinton Administration.

Without the immediacy of a clear threat against the United States, the reader is left wondering why there is such a hurry. Can't Mitch Rapp just take his time killing all the bad guys? Unlike in most of Flynn's previous books like Memorial Day, there's no climatic finish where at the last possible moment the U.S. is saved from disaster. In reality, the only pressures which push us to the end of the novel is to see how everything is played out. Even in this department Act of Treason is lacking.

The novel doesn't actually resolve itself. Early on the reader is made to think Flynn is going to take on the philosophy of many liberals that terrorism is a law enforcement issue and not a military issue. At one point it even looked like there would be a court scene involving a torture case. Flynn even had a chance to play around with the ideas of the new online journalists like Matt Drudge and their effect on public opinion. None of these possibilities ever panned out. Flynn wasn't interested in testing out those waters at all.

This book had so much potential for Flynn to expand his scope as a novelist and tackle some very big and complex issues. Instead those were glossed over and even forgotten by the end of the book. Sure, the book was still very readable and had some entertaining points. It just lacked the page turning qualities that made Vince a bestseller while it didn't show any expansion in his possibilities as a novelist. Would I still recommend reading it? Probably not for any but the most fanatical Mitch Rapp fans. Those new to Vince Flynn novels are best off looking to his earlier works to fully appreciate how good Vince Flynn can be.

45 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure escapism, a night without sleep! October 12, 2006

By W. P. Strange

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

For mystery/thriller fans this is pure nirvana. I read the entire book in two sessions and lost a night's sleep. The only disappointing thing about this Mitch Rapp adventure is that it was over too soon. If you enjoy reading for pleasure, to escape the troubles of your day, this is just what the doctor ordered. Vince Flynn just gets better and better. The writing is fast paced, and easy to read. The tension and plotting are believable and the characters, good and bad are enjoyable.