THE THIRD OPTION

Written by Vince Flynn & Reviewed by Detective Dru

Mitch Rapp, Orion Team stud, thorn in Saddam’s side, and the predominant focus of the third person omnipotent POV for the story, is in Germany on assignment. And he uttered the famous ”one last job” chorus not even a few pages in. Not a good omen. He is surveilling some 100+ acre property belonging to his target. Then he slips into a random cottage on the property with two tech people helping him. A bit far-fetched maybe? On the property? Of course, many of us have never owned 100 acres so maybe it's totally normal for three grown ass adults to set up shop on a man’s lawn without the owner noticing.  (A man who is so morally onerous in his career choices that he’s been chosen for assassination.  People in those fields are never paranoid or pony up for security cams, so yeah, super believable opening). Anyway. Stateside, Irene Kennedy CIA CTU aka Mitch’s boss, arrives at Camp David to meet with POTUS Hayes. Her boss, CIA director Stansfeld, has terminal cancer and six months to live. They’re discussing their target Saddam Hussein and Mitch’s progress in Germany. They say the proverbial “if he gets caught, we can’t help him and we’ll disavow any knowledge etc.” A bit heavy on the cliches to kick things off…

Christ, in Chapter two Mitch Rapp is going for a five mile jog on the property to stay loose? But all while remaining covert in the midst of clandestine nonsense too? C’mon man. Anyway, he’s there for Count Hagenmiller, a rich German private citizen whose company provides nuclear bomb materials to terrorists. There’s a party this evening with about fifty guests. There will be a staged robbery of some sort, then Mitch will make his move. He tells Kennedy he’s out after this one, she says you may change your mind when you’re debriefed back home…phew, thankfully more than one tired cliché per chapter is allowed. Triumphantly, we subverted expectations and shoehorned in a second one for chapter two.

Hank Clark, resident Republican and token Washington DC bad guy.  Some things are timeless.   Albert Rodin, ornery Democrat, and a lifelong congressman on the intelligence committee. Al’s not happy about Kennedy likely replacing Stansfeld. Hank says don’t worry she’ll implode professionally but won’t elaborate. A boring intro to two characters with a contrived cliffhanger to button up the conversation.

In Chapter four, the party starts and honestly, it’s super underwhelming. They get the target and his attorney and his bodyguard into some library room. They play the part of cops, but Mitch shoots all three. Jane Hoffman, his cottage dwelling IT partner, then betrays Mitch and shoots him before finding her hubby Tom, and they Bonnie & Clyde out of there. The double cross really doesn’t land because we know nothing about the Hoffmans, only that Mitch had a bad feeling about them.  Perhaps we’ll get to the bottom of it, but for now they’re just faceless bad guys like the henchmen in Dr. Evil’s lair.

Chapter five begins to shed light with some dude named Cameron, watching the whole thing and satisfied with the “Jansens aka Hoffman” work. Mitch wakes up from his murder attempt (secretly wearing Kevlar – Doctor Emmet L Brown was a mentor for us all) and starts a fire that no one notices and steals a car once they do. He wants to flee to Italy because he knows an ex Mossad lady down there but doesn’t want to risk hanging out with her because he loves Anna so much. Clearly it ain’t serious then Mitch, if just having your field of vision breached by some woman will cause cheating?

Anna Reilly is at home awaiting Mitch’s return. She’s written as a super hottie that wouldn’t dare eat junk food…but she has a morning beer?? The details in this book are impressively both contrived and lacking…Mitch drives to some German airport to ditch the car he stole and hails a cab, only to hijack the cab and tell the driver to take him to Frankfurt.

Back in the USA, Irene Kennedy plays dumb when the other agencies announce the Hagenmiller death. Plus they have a lead on cctv (Mitch) to the killer at the party and some other dept wants Irene’s cooperation because she was monitoring Hagenmiller for the CIA already. But how did they know that???

Quick check on one of our villains.  Cameron is now back stateside, but discovers the news about the German fire, with only two corpses (the count and the bodyguard) not three (Mitch). Mitch ties up the cab driver in some hotel then changes his appearance then buys a bike because he just happens to know a cycling club in the area. How convenient. And then even though he couldn’t breathe while in the car because of his bullet-bruised ribs, he has no problem biking miles and miles to get to France. He plans on locating the Hoffmans/Jansens for questioning and he hates that Kennedy is the prime suspect by virtue of her access to the information required to carry out this failed hit on Mitch. This book has been lazy thus far, but in defense of the author it is pre 9/11, so anything tech or internet driven is naively written in hindsight.

Elsewhere, someone named Liz O’Rourke is writing a book and is best friends with Anna Reilly. She gets a note in code from Mitch telling her to coax Anna to her place for a while for her safety and that he’d be in touch and just to let this woman know that he means business, he hints that he already knows about some guy that was part of some thing years ago?

Peter Cameron is now negotiating the assassination of the Jansen’s on a plane but talks are stalling.  Coleman and Hackett are also on a separate plane to save the two Jansen’s.  Congressman O’Rourke drives to his wife’s best friend’s (Anna) house since she wasn’t picking up her phone. He’s also scared of Mitch Rapp because of the ominous I Know What You Did Last Summer note that he slipped his wife.

Just ugh to chapter twelve. Cameron is with some French guy Villaume and they’re in Colorado on the heels of the Jansen’s. There’s all this odd couple energy to spice up the dull action. Again, contrived melodrama.  Coleman and Hackett and Stroble are also now in a car with the Jansen’s on their mind. Hackett had a bad feeling and a bad dream about this so now they’re all worried. Running out of patience with this book. Too much eye rolling.

O’Rourke brings Anna back to his house and demands answers about Mitch and why he reached out to Liz with the coded note for help. Anna won’t budge, O’Rourke gets pushy and pregnant wife Liz yells at her hubby congressman. He’s right about the national security implications and they’re both wrong but even the author concedes the women are right in this potentially catastrophic situation simply because they’re women and happy wife, happy life, etc. Some tropes never change.

Mr Jansen reads the papers and deduces Mitch is still alive. He wakes up the wife to abscond from their cottage they just arrived at the night before. Author also hints that it wasn’t Kennedy that hired them.  Peter Cameron and the Frog (aka Villaume – author’s words) have the Jansen’s in their sites. They shoot both as Coleman watches thru his binoculars. Really, Vince Flynn? First, this much involvement with Coleman & now Cameron?? The last thing this book that’s already waterlogged with disposable characters needs is Game of Thrones fleabottom buffoonery with the names…

A German ambassador sets a meeting with POTUS and gently accuses him of murdering the Count because he knew CIA was surveying. POTUS snaps at the ambassador then chides deputy director Middleton for sharing intel in front of the German. It’s just too many damn interchangeable suits, this is always what pushes readers off political thrillers.

Peter Cameron shows up at Hank Clark’s place. Sounds like these are our two villains. Hank wanted Rapp dead and Cameron debriefed him on taking out the Jansen’s himself. Clark wants the French guy gone too. He also hates Kennedy and sounds like he has plans to destroy her so she won’t succeed Stansfeld. This chapter could’ve come way earlier. There was not additional tension, only additional confusion by waiting 150 pages to single out the antagonist and his motive.  Perhaps the groundwork had been laid in the previous novel Transfer of Power, but it’s been many minutes since seeing the words on those pages.  But let’s move on, because Anna is presently banging Mitch, she gets access to POTUS whenever she wants. She asks him about Mitch, he relents, but then confirms he thinks Mitch is ok at the moment.

Duser and Cameron are at some chop shop getting rid of the girl they killed and destroying evidence of their Mario Lukas hit, a pointless detour in the book that won’t be addressed here. Duser wants to “get the girl,” but Cameron refuses, saying they’re done for the day. Duser doesn’t like that but Cameron says follow Juarez because that’s our path to Villaume and we’ll kill them all. I do not care about a single one of these characters. So. Many. Characters. Spoiler: they all end up not mattering by the end, so good thing we keep checking in.

Aww Christ, the readers are seriously introduced to a whole room of new characters. Irene has some thing under oath in the morning and Brown feels bad that she’s gonna be the casualty of whatever crap this crap is building up to. So much peripheral exposition. Chapter twenty one informs us that Mitch has a dog now. Totally the right time to get one.  Kennedy meets with Stansfeld with advice on how to handle Rodin tomorrow. He tells her she will be recommended for his job.  Mitch and dog are casing the Stansfeld house at that very moment!!! Then Mitch sees Kennedy, but it’s made worse because some bad guy pulls into the driveway at that very moment!!! Ham fisted and hundreds of pages in.  My kingdom for an editor.

Oh good another character! Donatella Rahn, some secretive girl in Milan, is hired for something in Manhattan. Kennedy goes to her own hearing. It’s mostly yelling but O’Rourke asks her about Mitch (his wife and Anna are friends). Then Kennedy lies under oath about involvement with the German Count’s death.  Coleman and Mitch and Dumond hack away to learn about the Lukas death. Both Coleman & Mitch recognize him.  Two people dressed as carpet cleaners sneak into Anna’s house and bug and inventory it.  And now Cameron calls Villaume??? Apparently just to taunt him. They threaten each other and deny each other’s accusations before Cameron decides he needs to give Duser the green light to kill the frog Villaume.

Mitch uses some concierge (weak) to get Frog to call him and Coleman. They chat, all Mitch wants is who hired him for the Colorado Jansen job but he won’t say.  O’Rourke and Kennedy have their chat about Mitch but she’s evasive. He gets frustrated and she reminds him of some scandal his grandfather and Scott Coleman were involved in that got politicians killed. (Mitch alluded to it in his coded note to Liz earlier.)

Villaume gives up what he knows about his hirer the Professor. Then boring tech talk the rest of the chapter regarding phone traces.  Peter Cameron aka the Professor gets the call from Mitch and panics, then freaks about having to tell Clark. Mitch says he’ll call in one hour and needs answers.  Mitch calls back but the number is disconnected and they’re scared he’s in the wind. They brainstorm and deduce the honcho works for the State because Middleton knew too much too quickly after the Count’s death. Clark calls some secret meeting with Rudin and Middleton and Brown who works with Kennedy. Lots of bickering before Peter Cameron interrupts.  Cameron knows Mitch doesn’t know his identity but he tells Clark anyway. Clark tells him next moves but also tells him to go ahead and pick up Anna. He also reveals to the reader that he hired Colonel - yup another character- to kill Cameron because he’s become a loose end. Sigh. Anna gets into a government car thinking she is going to meet Mitch. She calls Liz to tell her she won’t he needing their bed tonight. 

Chapter thirty two and Stansfeld makes his final visit to POTUS. He implies Middleton is their leak and POTUS confirms he ordered the kill on the Count. Stansfield says he’ll take the blame for it all since he’s about to die anyway. This ex mossad Donatella Rahm lady is now in DC and armed (eye roll). Turns out Duser is one of Anna’s kidnappers. They take her to Mitch’s house so she doesn’t suspect anything. Duser calls Professor Cameron to inform him they have her at the house.  Clark tells Cameron that he’s to trick Mitch into meeting at Mitch’s house where Duser will kill Mitch and Anna and make it seem like murder suicide.   Stansfield and Kennedy and Coleman and Rapp yap about the Professor and whether it’s Middleton.

Mitch gets to O’Rourkes and quickly deduces Anna is in trouble since she’s not there.  Cameron can’t help himself so he goes to Mitch’s place where Anna is. Mitch calls Kennedy about Anna then checks her apartment only to confirm it’s bugged. Now he’s going to his hacker guy.  They’re at Marcus Dumond’s place again and they’re on the tracing call strategy. Again. Then Coleman tells Mitch to step away from the mission because he’s too emotional. They call Cameron he answers they agree him and Mitch will meet in the AM. Using Hollywood logic Mitch somehow figures out that Cameron is at his own house because his call routes thru a tower near his home. So he calls Kennedy to send a chopper (?!?!?!) to surveil his place from the sky? wtf. Boy we pick and choose what is cladestine and what isn’t in this book. Call me crazy, but people will notice a fucking chopper, even one used for secret government aided kidnappings and murders. This is Hellbent logic all over again. After the call Cameron goes back to Mitch’s house to tell Anna he’ll be there in the AM. Then he tells Duser to move the cars from the driveway. The chopper likely caught this activity. Mitch tells the chopper to follow the car that’s leaving while he gets near his house.  They head off the one car at the gas station and torture the guy, he confirms Anna is there upstairs but that professor is no longer there. They decide to wire the guy then send him back in the house as a distraction. Rapp kills Duser and some other bodyguards. He uses Duser’s phone to call professor. He somehow knows Cameron has a beard? So Cameron decides its flight time.  Mitch takes Anna to the secret service for protection then to Stansfeld again (all in the middle of the night mind you) he tells Stansfeld and Irene that this is his last job. They say we’ll talk later about that then Coleman calls to say they think the professor is Cameron.  Clark wakes up at 7 AM and Cameron shows up. He briefs him on Anna and Mitch and Duser not going to plan but assures Clark they’re in no danger. Clark appears to agree then sends Cameron to his private island in the Bahamas to lay low. Then he emails the Colonel presumably to give the green light to kill Cameron. Again very inconsistent with what they think is sensitive and what isn’t…maybe don’t email contract killers?  Anyway, look how boring and headache inducing this paragraph was. Now stretch it out to 500 pages…

Donatella Rahn aka Colonel gets the green light.  Chapter forty two evokes Clancy-esque writing to ensnare Cameron and Colonel and Rapp’s POV as they all converge. Colonel kills Cameron with an ice pick to the ear. Conveniently Mitch recognizes her gait from afar (in a blonde wig too) as well as her means of death in order to keep the plot momentum going.

Clark has audience with POTUS and Stansfeld. He offers endorsement of Kennedy as successor but also throws Middleton and Rodin under the bus as conspiring haters. Political moves!!!

Mitch doesn’t mention the girl he recognized to Kennedy. It’s becuase she’s an ex?!?! He wants to visit her off the record to confirm before blowing the whistle on her. But then Kennedy frames Rodin by having Dumond hack and make it look like Rodin got secret payoffs from Cameron. Glad to see our next CIA honcho demonstrating such iron clad morality.

Holy melodrama Chapter forty five. POTUS and Kennedy and Stansfeld bring in Mitch to the Oval Office for one last pitch. They need him to stay on. He says no. They say here’s an office job in Langley so it’s safe and close to Anna. He says no. Then he sees Stansfeld is dying and Stansfeld says pretty please because we have a mole. So Mitch says yes ?!? wtf. Then someone enters the room and says Middleton just unalived himself. Sigh.

Jesus what a dull ending. Jonathan Brown shows up at Clark’s place to tell him Middleton is dead and Clark has to pretend to be surprised. Then he tells Brown that he must nominate Kennedy and not him but that’s ok because she won’t make it thru confirmation. Then the book ends. What a whimper to go out on. Just too many interchangeable unimportant one dimensional supporting characters.  But the consensus at large seems to be that the next book more or less wraps up this larger arc with this roster of characters.  Let’s give the next book a hate read and hopefully that will be our last adventure with Mitch and his army of grey faces.