Oath of Loyalty: A Mitch Rapp novel by Kyle Mills

At the end of Enemy at the Gates, Mitch Rapp had pretty much sealed the fate of Nicholas Ward, the world’s first trillionaire. The media was reporting that Wade was dead in Uganda. How he died is the mystery.

But that may not be quite true. Mitch had succeeded in hiding Ward in Africa, but Mitch was still trying to find out who was behind some betrayals.  As Oath of Loyalty begins, it turns out one of Mitch’s trusted compadres, Mike Nash, had been turned by the recently elected President Anthony Cook. Still in Uganda, Mitch and Nash circle each other until Nash is cornered out in the bush. With no way out, Nash takes his own life. But to all but Rapp, Nash has simply disappeared.

Now Nash was no easy target. For President and First Lady Catherine Cook, Nash’s disappearance can only mean that Rapp has figured out their deal with Nash. Having turned one of Rapp’s own, the Cooks are convinced that Rapp’s next target is the President. Having done nothing since Nash’s suicide, Mitch has turned to try and live a quiet life in South Africa with Claudia and her precocious 7yo daughter Anna. And that’s going well.

President Cook has been appointing yes-men to the various cabinet posts and other leadership positions. But Irene Kennedy is still the head of the CIA and he wants her gone. He appoints Darren Hargreave, a career Cook suck-up to clean house of all things Kennedy/Rapp. Firing Kennedy is easy. Getting rid of Rapp? Maybe not.

Hargreave’s first attempt on Rapp is an assault on Rapp’s home outside of Manassas, VA. That fails. The Cooks and Hargreave decide the direct approach won’t work. So they decide to go after what Rapp holds dear – Claudia and Anna.

Claudia is the widow of what once was one of the most prolific assassins. Claudia did the research and logistics and hubby pulled the trigger. Her skills have earned her more than one enemy who’d love to see her gone. Hargreave’s research has identified a list of enemies eager to see Claudia dead. Very quietly, he notifies each that Claudia is alive and gives sufficient details on where she can be found.

he first attempt come from a Guatemalan drug kingpin. An assault by 10 men on Rapp’s home in Africa. That fails. Mitch and Claudia track down the drug boss and Mitch sends him to his maker in spectacular fashion. The next couple names on Hargreave’s list meets some untimely ends. Rapp checks in on the next who is muy old and infirm living in Spain. Yes, he had contacted. And he’d tell Rapp who he forwarded the contract to if Mitch will do him a favor. Which Mitch does.

The contract was forwarded to Legion. Perhaps the current world’s most successful and efficient assassins. No one knows who in Legion. Is it one person or a team? Where they are? How they are contracted? How they are paid? Nothing. Only thing Rapp learns is that that they are creative and effective. All their targets appear to have died of natural causes. Legion is not a product of any government, so Mitch is at a loss. How to stop Legion is job one. How to stop Cook is job 2.

As you should recall, Vince Flynn, the creator of Mitch Rapp, died in 2013 and the publishers recruited Kyle Mills to pick up where Flynn left off. Since then, Mills has ably stepped into Flynn’s tactical boots and Oath of Loyalty is his 8^th Mitch Rapp book (to go along with 21 other political thrillers of his own). In this book, we start to see Rapp considering life after being a spy/assassin for the last 20-odd years. He has Claudia and Anna as his immediate family. And a half dozen or so others with whom he worked and trusted with his life on multiple occasions. Mitch is stepping back but the Cook’s, the embodiment of paranoia and the lust for power, just won’t let him go. Each time Cook thrusts, Rapp parries and in doing so, gets one step closer to Cook.

If I were the Cooks . . . I’d be wary. They’ll be looking over both shoulders at the same time because Rapp won’t quit.

Thanks to the good folks at Simon and Schuster (as well as Atria Books and Emily Bestler Books) for the advance reviewer copy. Oath of Loyalty goes on sale on September 13, 2022.

And again, my faith in Emily Bestler Books remains firm. They've turned out another winning political thriller. From where I sit, no one does it better.

ECD

 

Suspect by Scott Turow

Clarice Granum known as Pinky is a thirty something free spirit who currently works for attorney Rik Dudek as a private investigator.  Pinky has made her share of misteps in life, from illegal drugs, to tattoos and facial piercings to failed relationships with members of both genders, to washing out of the police academy.  The only person who seems to understand her is her grandfather the renowned, Sandy Stern.  For Scott Turow fans, you will remember the now retired Sandy Stern as the attorney representing Rusty Savage in Presumed Innocent.

Rik’s latest defendant is Lucia Gomez, the female police chief of Highland Isle, near Kindle County.  The chief is accused by three male police officers of soliciting sex in exchange for promotions within the police department.  Gomez insists the accusations against her are part of an ugly smear campaign intent on destroying her career.  She suspects ‘The Ritz,’ a local drug dealer, real estate tycoon, underworld criminal and Gomez’ former patrol partner as the instigator of her problems.  But Pinky has to prove it.

Meanwhile an interesting man, Koob moves into the apartment next to Pinky and her natural investigator instincts can’t leave him alone.  He keeps to himself and has an odd schedule.  Pinky begins following him in her spare time and ultimately builds a relationship with him.  She finds he has a connection to The Ritz. 

Of the three witnesses against the chief, two are proven unreliable by Rik and the third is murdered.  Pinky is allowed in on the police investigation of the murder because of her work on the chief’s case and because she knows the lead detective from when they were in the academy together.  But her tenacity puts her in grave danger as they close in on the truth.

 I remember reading Presumed Innocent while on vacation in 1990.  I was so entranced I ignored family and friends until I finished the book.  I thought it ranked right up there with Grishams’s A Time to Kill.  While Suspect is no Presumed Innocent, it does hold your interest.  The Pinky character is not someone you’d expect from Scott Turow, but through in depth introspect written from Pinky's perspective, you grow to enjoy her quirks and eccentricities making her a great protagonist in a mystery novel.  

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance look.

 

Blackwater Falls by Ausma Zehanat Khan

Blackwater Falls is a (fictional) well-to-do suburb of Denver. The main power brokers include a major Lockheed Martin facility, Apex Dynamics (a primary subcontractor to Lockheed Martin), The Resurrection Church (a non-denominational evangelical church and its Pastor, Gentleman Jack John Wayne), a National Foods plant (processes mostly meats), The Blackwater Academy (an exclusive private school), and Sheriff Addison Grant. And can’t forget about the Disciples (a motorcycle gang with ties to the Sheriff).

 

The community may indeed be quite affluent, but it also has taken in a considerable number of refugees primarily from the Middle East and Somalia. From this fringe population provides industry (especially National Foods) with a dispensable supply of workers for less than prestigious jobs.

 

The Sheriff is a no-nonsense type who is none too fond of the growing refugee population in his district. Two Somali teenage girls have gone missing with little investigative effort by the sheriff. A local attorney, Areesha Adams, keeps pushing for some action by law enforcement with little luck. 

 

Another teenage girl, the Syrian Razan Elkader, is found murdered and hung in effigy on the front door of the local mosque. The Denver PD puts the Community Response Unit in charge of the investigation shutting out the sheriff. This unit was set up to deal with potentially explosive crimes that might fuel the fires of the various minority factions in the Denver area. The Unit is made up of Waqas Seif (of Pakistani heritage), Inaya Rahman (Afghanistan native), Catalina Hernandez (Mexican), and Jaime Webb (newly minted detective and token American). 

 

Seizing the investigation from Sheriff Grant, the Unit starts working the profiles of the various factions who might’ve wanted this young girl killed. For example, her father was trying to unionize the National Foods workers. The church is openly hostile to non-whites. The sheriff is a white supremacist of the first order. The Disciples get their marching orders from the sheriff. Razan was an activist for local minorities, worked a part-time job at a local ice cream shop, academically gifted (winning a prestigious internship at Apex in the process), and the victim of school bullying by the star QB who’s headed to Ohio State on a scholarship. And the pot is continually stirred by Areesha Adams. Not to mention that it sure seems like the Unit boss, Seif, has his own agenda that seems to stall how the investigation progresses.

 

That’s a lot of juggling for any author - local politics, religion, bigotry, bullying, top secret research, betrayal, and more. This is my first book from Khan. Per her website, she “holds a Ph.D. in international human rights law with a research specialization in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. She completed her LL.B. and LL.M. at the University of Ottawa, and her B.A. in English literature & sociology at the University of Toronto.” Whew, that’s some pedigree. And she’s a multi-award winner author of 11 (fantasy, mystery, non-fiction) books. This is the first of what looks like a new series featuring Inaya Rahman.

 

A few years ago, I sprinted through a 3-book series about a Saudi female detective by Zoe Ferrais. While I still think the Ferrais books were absolutely top shelf, I’m thinking that this Rahman series will be worth a deep dive. I was concerned that the subject matter might’ve ended up being a bit too ‘woke’ for my tastes. By the time the investigation narrowed, that concern quickly disappeared. Give Khan a try. You might like it. 

 

Thanks to Netgalley for making an advance review copy available. The book is due to be published November 1, 2022.

 

ECD

The Maze by Nelson DeMille

It’s been a while since DeMille’s previous John Corey book, 2015 to be exact (or was it 2012?). No matter. Corey can be summed up simply – world class homicide detective for NYPD – piss of his bosses – then work for NY Joint Terrorism Task Force – piss off his bosses – then work for the feds in the Diplomatic Surveillance Group – piss off his bosses – get married to a lawyer – piss off wife #1 – remarry a different lawyer – piss off wife #2 and she moves to DC with an FBI coworker of John – along the way, he thinks more with his little head than his big head bedding (or fanaticizing about) various lady cops – gets shot a few times – may or may not have a GRU or Islamic shooter looking for him - smart ass jerk with a never ending stream of insults/swears/tirades/put downs that sometimes are warranted, other times, maybe not.

All in all. John Corey is a hoot, and a helluva ballsy cop.

He’s back out on the far eastern end of Long Island (again). He’s been shipped out by the feds on a ¾ disability and is recovering in a house owned by an uncle. One of the local cops he knows from an earlier adventure, Max, alerts him that a local private investigative company is looking, and Max thinks Corey is a good match. The office, a converted farmhouse, sits in the rural outlying area where the primary landmark is a next door corn maze.

So does Beth Penrose, Max’s subordinate homicide detective and former paramour to Corey. Corey doesn’t think the PI business (wayward husbands, stakeouts, tracking down missed alimony payments, etc.) is too interesting. But he needs something seeing as how his uncle has rented the house and Beth Penrose not only is trying to help John find a job, but she’s also willing to take him in to be more than a roommate.

John’s not interested in the job, but he is interested in Beth so he agrees to an interview. The boss PI, Steve Landowski, is a former vice cop from NYC. On the payroll are two other former cops as PIs, a slew of freelancers, a disbarred lawyer, a deviously hot receptionist, and a couple of middle-aged bookkeepers/file clerks. Landowski wants to hire Corey to use Corey’s notoriety to snare new and bigger paying clients and maybe do a little actual PI work. Besides, Landowski offers some enticing perks like invites to Landowski’s ledgendary parties and his weekly Thirsty Thursdays (exotic dancers one week, Date night the 2^nd week, open bar and poker the third week, party girls/all-bets-are-off the fourth week-attendance by invitation only). 

The invitation list for the 4^th week is a who’s who of Long Island and New York law enforcement bosses, defense and district attorneys, judges, politicos and other elected officials. And being no fool, Landowski has the entire office space covered with cameras. Anything that happens on the Island that might help or hurt the business can be handled with a little arm twisting and video evidence.

What Landowski wants from Corey differs from what Beth and Max want from him. They have some long-standing cold cases. Nine ‘working’ women have been found in various shallow graves on the outer reaches of the island. A part-time PI committed suicide. A reporter hasn’t been heard from for a couple years. And for reasons not initially apparent to John, the local cops don’t seem too keen to do much investigation. Max and Beth want John to go undercover to learn what he can learn.Everybody want something from John.

John, Max, and Beth spend an inordinate amount of time playing the ‘maybe’, ‘what if’, ‘why’, ‘or’ game as they try to piece together just what the hell is going on in that farmhouse, who might be involved, who benefits, who kills.

I’ve read many of DeMille books, all of which are top shelf. DeMille also wrote what I still consider to be the best espionage book I’ve ever read, The Charm School. With that at the top of my DeMille pile, the John Corey books are right behind. Written for a male audience (ya think?), most any guy with an ounce of testosterone who likes police mysteries will find a friend in John Corey.  If he’s a new character to you, start with Plum Island and work your way forward. Each book can be a standalone, but Corey’s work/relationship history will be clearer by reading them in order. There’s 7 or 8 as I recall.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance reviewer opportunity. The Maze will be released on October 11.

ECD

Mother Daughter Traitor Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal

Mother Daughter Traitor Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal is a WWII novel of which I’ve read so many, but this is a new story in a new location. The book starts in New York and then lands in Los Angeles in 1940. Veronica Grace, a very promising national award winning journalism major has just graduated from college and intended to take a job with a prominent magazine, Mademoiselle. But when Betsy Blackwell, the legendary editor in chief of the magazine learned of Veronica’s affair, she invoked the moral clause in Veronica’s contract and then withdrew the offer of a job. Veronica’s affair with a prominent man led to getting blackballed from any real journalistic jobs in New York. Max Applebaum’s wife was the daughter of one of the titans of New York City publishing. She was faced with a tough decision and she chose to move to LA, along with her widowed mother. Veronica made the move without having prearranged employment. Her mother was also a beautiful blond and the daughter of German immigrants. They were not left with much of an estate from Veronica’s deceased father, so the women both needed to find employment.

 

With the war already starting in Europe, there was much talk about world affairs, and it was established early in the novel that there were many German agents throughout the U.S. who were looking for ways to support Germany and Hitler in the war effort. As the daughter of immigrants, both Veronica’s mother, Violet “Vi,” looked German, spoke German, and lived in a German community in New York City. It was Vi’s brother that offered them one of his houses in Santa Monica.

 

Despite their connection to the German community, Veronica and Vi were not friends of Hitler. Rather, they were quite upset about the anti-democratic events that they knew were happening. Some of Veronica’s undergraduate writings were specifically anti-Nazi pieces. Meanwhile, the FBI agents in LA were tracking pro-Nazi events there, and early in the book, one of their agents was murdered when his true purpose was discovered by the Nazi sympathizers. 

 

With that setup, this is a story about Veronica and Vi stumbling into a group of Germans in LA, some of whom were active in the pro-Nazi movement. Being desperate to find work, Veronica volunteered her typing skills to a German businessman who she only later discovered was the source of hateful anti-Jew propaganda. She needed the work but was ready to quit the job because of the content this organization was putting forward. However, Veronica and Vi were then encouraged by the FBI to continue to be infiltrators and informants. That’s what the story was about as the protagonist and their mother began to move in the Nazi circles where they gathered information to pass along to the FBI. While being fully aware of the danger they were in if discovered, they chose to continue this work. When they passed along some data that led to the interruption of planned pro-Nazi activities, the leaders became suspicious that there was a  mole in their midst and suddenly Veronica and Vi became suspects of being the moles.

 

I thought the novel offered a new look at terrorism at home, and considering the civil unrest that was the goal of the Nazis, much of this sounded similar to some of the anti-democratic news reports that are currently occurring in the U.S.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Daniel Silva

Daniel Silva has done it again There are 24 novels (if I counted correctly) in the Gabriel Allon series, all of which have been reviewed in this blog, all of which I’ve loved. The sad part of finishing the latest novel is that I have to wait another year until the next one is published. If you’ve not yet read Silva, then you have a big stack of books that will entertain you and hold your interest for a long time. Start with The Mark of The Assassin, written in 1998. The new story, Portrait of an Unknown  Woman, is a bit different because Allon has retired as the head of the Office, the master spy/assassination branch of Israeli intelligence. Over the years, we’ve seen him move from a super agent doing nearly impossible acts of espionage, and then reluctantly advancing into the administration. But in the current book, he has become a civilian again. 

 

Previously, for the Office, Allon used his artistic talents as a cover for his being in place to do his deeds for Israel, and in this book, he continues as an artist who entered the world of art forgery for the purpose of exposing a scheme to flood the world with fake masterpieces. Some fakes were already hanging in prestigious museums and were selling at outrages prices. For people who had purchased such paintings, they had a stake in the forgery scheme not being exposed or their alleged multi-million dollar paintings would have been exposed as worthless.

 

Silva brings the usual cast of characters although we read more about his family since they’ve moved from Jerusalem to Venice, the home of his wife, Chiari. Julian Isherwood and his gallery are central to Allon’s plans. Of course there are new characters who are introduced to fill out the plot and subplots. I don’t intend to write about the plot, so the book will just provide you with the intended surprises. As usual, Silva, my favorite writer, gets a 5/5 rating from me.

 

WCD

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

The Dutch House by Ann Patchet is a story about the lives of a brother, Danny, and sister, Maeve, Conroy. The house, how their family acquired this mansion, their parents, there prior owners, and more are all a part of this drama. The family was highly dysfunctional, but the reader is drawn into the lives of Danny and Maeve and how they coped with their challenges. I came to this book as the result of it being on the New York Times list of the 15 best audio books of all time. The Dutch House was masterfully performed by Tom Hanks. So unlike most of our reviews, while people did die in the course of the five decades covered, this was not a murder mystery. Still, there were lots of unexpected events in the lives of the protagonists. This one gets a 5 star rating. I was thoroughly entertained and was disappointed when the novel came to an end.