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A review by oneeasyreader
American Assassin by Vince Flynn
3.0
He was a workaholic who golfed on weekends. He was in no way a bad father.
The duality of man.
Vince Flynn that is. He wrote a bad book. But he also put something in it better than many many many good books.
He was a workaholic who golfed on weekends
American Assassin introduces us to S&M fantasist Mitch Rapp and his dom/sub relationship with Stan Hurley. Both want to be the dom, which drives the tension between them:
Hurley had given him specific orders to stay clear of both the target's apartment and his office. Rapp had not made a conscious decision to defy the order; it more or less just happened.
Rapp is practically perfect in every way, yet his weapon prematurely goes off in your hand, on your chest and in your face. Afterwards he will pretend he was "professional" about it.
Hurley has absolute power over a harem of young butch men. He pits them against each other while infiltrating his own pet "instructors" to heighten their overall arousal. He only finds success when he begrudgingly accepts a switch dom/sub role with Rapp.
I was a little disappointed Flynn only hints at large parts of Mitch and Rapp's physical relationship:
It had been a strange six months, and looking back on the journey, Rapp was amazed he had made it through without any serious injury.
I would say this is a MM romance with elements of dubious consent. Technically Hurley and Mitch do also hook up with prostitutes or a blank piece of wood, but Flynn makes clear which set of
"and all of the other pussies back at Langley don't have the balls to follow through on it."
Anyway, there's some Old Testament stuff about retribution and how America went "soft" in the 80s (you know, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Iran, Lebanon and that time they thought about fricken space lasers). Whatever, it's Flynn's fantasy, his dirty dirty fantasy.
He was in no way a bad father
My experience with action/thrillers is that the main antagonists exist either as a hub for directing a bunch of "elite" cannon fodder for our heroes, or as an "unreachable" target. We get weighty backstories about their origins, along with their supposed brilliance, but they have little story impact. I also sense a predilection in the genre for "shock" twists, revealing the "real" villain, which really means the story had no villain.
Here, the main villains have virtually no backstory. It's all in the plot. They start holding a good hand but then the heroes steal their money. This causes the villains serious issues, forcing them to desperately grab at a risky opportunity. They also have to deal with: distrust with each other as to who stole the money; fractious allies with agendas that variously coincide and conflict; and a third party putting pressure on their turf.
Take Shvets. He can't understand letting depression get so bad that you can't get out of bed. Instead he's all nervous energy, weighing up whether to flee or fix things while his boss Ivanov is in a drunken funk over the money. Deciding on fixing it, Shvets has to cajole Ivanov into new plans:
"Blame someone and start investigating"
Shvets tries to put pressure a Swiss banker over the stolen money but has to change tack when he learns he lacks leverage. He is stuck within the limitations of his role and goes with the ace-in-the-hole-play due to his totally believable desperate situation.
Sayyed is a torturer. But he's got alot of problems. He can't find guards that won't beat up his prisoners and maintain basic hygiene. His Palestinian ally wants a generous cut of the ransom. Payday's Thursday and the monthly bribes are coming up. He's got to make a show of force to the Armenians. Hurley bites off part of his ear. When Sayyed thinks:
He wished he could skip ahead a day or two,
I totally buy it. He's me. At least, without the torture. He is stuck within the limitations of his role and goes with the ace-in-the-hole-play due to his totally believable desperate situation.
The denouement is obviously unfavourable to the villains but I'm willing to give Flynn alot of credit for creating interesting opponents.
He was a workaholic who golfed on weekends. He was in no way a bad father.
Flynn wrote this stupid line in this stupid book. Yet it fits as a summary of it. Somehow he puts something good in American Assassin that stands in contradiction to the rest of it.
The duality of man.
Vince Flynn that is. He wrote a bad book. But he also put something in it better than many many many good books.
He was a workaholic who golfed on weekends
American Assassin introduces us to S&M fantasist Mitch Rapp and his dom/sub relationship with Stan Hurley. Both want to be the dom, which drives the tension between them:
Hurley had given him specific orders to stay clear of both the target's apartment and his office. Rapp had not made a conscious decision to defy the order; it more or less just happened.
Rapp is practically perfect in every way, yet his weapon prematurely goes off in your hand, on your chest and in your face. Afterwards he will pretend he was "professional" about it.
Hurley has absolute power over a harem of young butch men. He pits them against each other while infiltrating his own pet "instructors" to heighten their overall arousal. He only finds success when he begrudgingly accepts a switch dom/sub role with Rapp.
I was a little disappointed Flynn only hints at large parts of Mitch and Rapp's physical relationship:
It had been a strange six months, and looking back on the journey, Rapp was amazed he had made it through without any serious injury.
I would say this is a MM romance with elements of dubious consent. Technically Hurley and Mitch do also hook up with prostitutes or a blank piece of wood, but Flynn makes clear which set of
"and all of the other pussies back at Langley don't have the balls to follow through on it."
Anyway, there's some Old Testament stuff about retribution and how America went "soft" in the 80s (you know, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Iran, Lebanon and that time they thought about fricken space lasers). Whatever, it's Flynn's fantasy, his dirty dirty fantasy.
He was in no way a bad father
My experience with action/thrillers is that the main antagonists exist either as a hub for directing a bunch of "elite" cannon fodder for our heroes, or as an "unreachable" target. We get weighty backstories about their origins, along with their supposed brilliance, but they have little story impact. I also sense a predilection in the genre for "shock" twists, revealing the "real" villain, which really means the story had no villain.
Here, the main villains have virtually no backstory. It's all in the plot. They start holding a good hand but then the heroes steal their money. This causes the villains serious issues, forcing them to desperately grab at a risky opportunity. They also have to deal with: distrust with each other as to who stole the money; fractious allies with agendas that variously coincide and conflict; and a third party putting pressure on their turf.
Take Shvets. He can't understand letting depression get so bad that you can't get out of bed. Instead he's all nervous energy, weighing up whether to flee or fix things while his boss Ivanov is in a drunken funk over the money. Deciding on fixing it, Shvets has to cajole Ivanov into new plans:
"Blame someone and start investigating"
Shvets tries to put pressure a Swiss banker over the stolen money but has to change tack when he learns he lacks leverage. He is stuck within the limitations of his role and goes with the ace-in-the-hole-play due to his totally believable desperate situation.
Sayyed is a torturer. But he's got alot of problems. He can't find guards that won't beat up his prisoners and maintain basic hygiene. His Palestinian ally wants a generous cut of the ransom. Payday's Thursday and the monthly bribes are coming up. He's got to make a show of force to the Armenians. Hurley bites off part of his ear. When Sayyed thinks:
He wished he could skip ahead a day or two,
I totally buy it. He's me. At least, without the torture. He is stuck within the limitations of his role and goes with the ace-in-the-hole-play due to his totally believable desperate situation.
The denouement is obviously unfavourable to the villains but I'm willing to give Flynn alot of credit for creating interesting opponents.
He was a workaholic who golfed on weekends. He was in no way a bad father.
Flynn wrote this stupid line in this stupid book. Yet it fits as a summary of it. Somehow he puts something good in American Assassin that stands in contradiction to the rest of it.