Samyann
Close to eleven hours of listening, read by George Guidall.
First, an initial caveat. I’ve been a fan of Vince Flynn and the Mitch Rapp series for well over 10 years. The Survivor is the latest edition of the series and is a fairly seamless continuation of the previous novel, The Last Man. Following Vince Flynn’s death in mid 2013, I poured through his website and Facebook presence, and like many of his fans, was saddened with his passing.
Although not specifically acknowledged anywhere in this book, it has been my belief that Vince Flynn started writing The Survivor before he passed away, and The Survivor was completed by Kyle Mills. This has always been my understanding, based on the Vince Flynn website and a comment posted on the site by Flynn’s editor at the time, indicating that the publisher and Flynn’s family were actively looking for an author to complete the book. Just my opinion, but this tidbit should have been included in the dedication … in the audiobook, it is not. Too bad.
That said, The Survivor is an extraordinarily smooth transition from Flynn to Mills … another tiny piece of evidence which indicates to me that a large segment of this story was penned by Flynn himself. At any rate, well …. kudos to Mills in that he seems to be a Vince Flynn clone. For those who are familiar with Flynn’s writing and the Mitch Rapp series characters, I think you might agree. It’s really quite astonishing.
Anyway, continuing the story of The Last Man, Mitch is confronted with protecting the country from leaked CIA secrets and stupid politicians. All the familiar characters are sprinkled through the pages, i.e., Director Kennedy, Hurley, etc. Mitch Rapp is expertly portrayed as the loose-cannon-patriot-superman.
George Guidall is amazing, of course. Guidall simply is the voice of Mitch Rapp, having been the narrator for the entire series. This likely contributes a great deal to the smooth transition of authors … narration carries an already good story to a stellar audiobook.
I’m looking forward to continuation of the series, and based on the conclusion of The Survivor, Kyle Mills plans to do just that!
