The Survivor, A Mitch Rapp Novel: Vince Flynn and Kyle Mills authors, George Guidall, narrator
In this book, the head of the ISI (the Pakistani secret service), has devised a diabolical plan to bring down the CIA and the United States with the help of a former CIA agent turned traitor and a corrupt Senator. The ISI chief is after the head of Irene Kennedy, the CIA director and a rogue agent with a no-nonsense, loose cannon reputation, who is a thorn in his back, Mitch Rapp. Rapp is also known in the world of spies as “the angel of death”. He is the kind of agent you want as a friend, not an enemy. Even his boss, Kennedy, worries about whether or not his behavior will create problems that she will be unable to mitigate.

The ISI chief has decided to secretly siphon off a portion of the billions of aid dollars provided to his country by the Americans. He then uses it to promote the campaigns of U.S. politicians who will then lobby Congress to provide his country with more money that they will again use to entice more corrupt politicians! It would seem that everyone has a price. If you add a disgruntled and disturbed CIA agent with a grudge to the mix and couple him with a corrupt senator, you will have the makings of a novel about espionage, possible treason and cyber warfare.
The traitorous former CIA darling, Joe Rickman, has arranged to have information about secret CIA transactions released even after his death, if he is unsuccessful in bringing down his country while he is alive. The release of these damaging documents, revealing the espionage and clandestine activities of America, will have a cataclysmic effect on relationships with allies and enemies alike, and they will surely bring about the deaths of secret agents and double agents, and possibly their families, before they can be extracted.

In addition, the heads of Kennedy and Rapp are valuable prizes for international spies because not only would that greatly damage America’s prestige and power, if they were killed and the agency were compromised, but that would also elevate the stature of their killer in his corrupt, terrorist world.

Government agencies and officials sometimes find it necessary to engage in behavior that walks a tightrope between legal and illegal. They sponsor theft, lies, kidnapping and even murder, at times, in the name of national security.

As Rapp and his fellow agents bounce from country to country as they endeavor to stop the release of the damaging information, the international intrigue widens. The reader will be exposed to the barbaric tactics of the Pakistani methods of interrogation and retribution, as well as to the stretching of the rules by U.S. agents as they attempt to eradicate and stop the damage caused by the traitor.

The book sometimes gets bogged down by details that seem unnecessary, that seem to exist just to add pages of print, but otherwise, as a read, it is interesting, and it is a good distraction from the stress of one’s everyday life.