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Vince Flynn - Term Limits

I am a big Vince Flynn fan. I have succeeded in reading all of his books and not one of them in sequence. I have treated them more like a mix of prequels and sequels rather than the sequential serial books that were intended by the author.

Term Limits was the last one I had left to read. I know, it was his first book, but knowing that Mitch Rapp was not yet on Vince's counter-terrorism radar I felt pretty safe in treating this one like the stand alone that it is. Oh, there are characters that you will meet in the later books, but it read more like a pilot episode intended to test the waters then make character adjustments in later books. Actually what more likely happened with this book was that the critical success was not anticipated and changes were made as Vince decided if he was going to quit his day job.

The main character is Michael O'Roarke a Minnesota Congressman and former division 1 hockey defenseman. This was an obvious tribute to his Minnesota roots (he lives in Edina) keeping him grounded in familiar territory. Being an avid fan of F-Troop I couldn't help but picture Forrest Tucker (The famous Sgt. O'Roarke) as his grandfather Seamus. I thought Michael was a pretty good stab as the leading hero. He had the pretty newspaper reporter girlfriend named Liz that was introduced asking the predictable snoopy questions making Michael wrestle with the ethics and standards of his congressional office. All made for a solid story.

Why abandon Michael and introduce Mitch Rapp? I like Mitch and when deep in the middle of one of the later books I have the usual male fantasies of seeing myself as the government assassin in the midst of my unsuspecting Minnetonka neighbors. But unless my I am missing something I don't think Michael appears again. The female lead then moves from Liz to the TV Irish newscaster with most of the same personality traits as Liz.

My first thought is he was unsure what kind of success this might lead to and had not thought of how he would move his characters to the next book. Initially told from more of a political stage he decided to move to the counter terrorism world instead, bringing Irene Kennedy and Scott Coleman with him. I liked Seamus and thought he would have made a nice side story, but without Michael (unless he killed him off) it would have been disjointed.

Brian Haig is also a great story teller who has written a number of books of the same genre. My sister turned me onto him when she was laid up with one of her many surgeries and was burning through spy books like they were sudoku puzzles. He has found a great voice with all his stories told in the first person under the name Sean Drummond as a JAG attorney for the Black Ops groups. Secret Sanction was my favorite likely because it was my first. It has more court room action and picturing Travolta in the role is easy after watching him in Generals Daughter, another great story by Nelson DeMille.