[close] Rancorous political infighting surrounds the selection of a successor to the dying head of the CIA just as Mitch Rapp, the agency's top operative, embarks on a dangerous mission to take out a well-known German industrialist believed to be supplying Middle East terrorists with highly sensitive equipment critical to constructing a nuclear bomb. When Rapp's ultimately successful mission is compromised from within, ailing CIA director Thomas Stansfield puts his imprimatur on the efforts of his chosen successor, Irene Kennedy, director of the agency's Counterterrorism Center, to identify the powerful interests both inside and outside the agency that wanted Rapp to fail.

The motive soon becomes clear; there are people who'll stop at nothing to remove Kennedy from the helm of the agency after Stansfield dies. One thing they didn't count on was Rapp's survival, and now he's a lethal weapon whose sights are fixed directly on the most powerful among them. This is a strong, swift thriller, a bit predictable (the senator in the black hat has dogs named Caesar and Brutus) but nonetheless involving. Author Vince Flynn sustains the dramatic tension from the opening paragraph to the last; in Mitch Rapp, he's got the makings of a promising series hero. --Jane Adams [close]