Bestseller Mills's entertaining seventh entry in Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series (after 2020's Total Power) finds CIA agent Mitch considering retirement. After 20 years in the game, he's seriously banged up, he's got a wife and child to protect, he has no relationship with the new U.S. president, and he sees his beloved America collapsing into extremism. Mitch heads to South Africa, where he has a house and plans to become a long-distance bicycle racer. But shortly after his arrival, Nicholas Ward, the world's first trillionaire, shows up to ask for his help finding missing virologist David Chism. Chism, who was working on a vaccine for any type of coronavirus that exists now and any that might arise in the future, disappeared after his laboratory in Uganda, financed by Ward, was attacked by a local terrorist. Mitch, with his wife's blessing, accepts and joins old pal Scott Coleman's security team to locate Chism. Mills delivers the goods, including a CIA mole, perfidy at the highest levels of the U.S. government, and close-combat with a messianic psychopathic terrorist villain who commands a drug-fueled army. Military action fans will be pleased. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Sept.)

Flynn introduced counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp in 1999's Transfer of Power and wrote 12 more Rapp novels. After Flynn's death in 2013, Kyle Mills took over the series, and has guided it with a sure hand ever since. This is his seventh Rapp novel, and it is just terrific. When the CIA learns that its computer system has been attacked, perhaps by someone operating within the agency, Mitch is assigned the difficult job of protecting Nicholas Ward, the world's first trillionaire, who appears to be the target of the hacking. Mitch soon realizes that the only real way of protecting him is to lure the hacker out of hiding, which means using Ward, one of the most famous people on the planet, as bait for someone who might want him dead. The key to the early success of the Rapp novels was Flynn's careful construction of the character. Rapp is no standard-issue muscular action hero; instead, he is, as created by Flynn, a fully fleshed human being. Mills has continued in that vein, giving the reader involving stories populated by believable characters who are grounded in a recognizable reality. Not every series that has changed hands after the original author's death has fared well after the transition. Thanks to Mills, that's not the case with the Rapp novels.

Mitch Rapp protects the world's richest man and faces down a psychopath in his 20th adventure. The CIA asks Rapp to protect Nicholas Ward, the first trillionaire ever, who has big plans for improving the planet. In the coming decades, Ward's technologies will help make Saudi oil worthless. And with Dr. David Chism, he hopes to transform health care worldwide. In a lab in Uganda, Chism is working on creating a single vaccine that could wipe out the entire coronavirus category: no Covid-19, no SARS, no colds. These damn do-gooders are unquestionably an existential threat to the general world order, and the Saudis want them gone. Ruthless U.S. President Anthony Cook is down with that. "The human race can't absorb that many fundamental changes all at once," he opines. So the Saudis, with secret encouragement from Cook, hire the crazed warlord Gideon Auma, aka God's representative on Earth, to neutralize David Chism and stop the research. "Bullets can't harm me," Auma brags, and his followers believe him. Soon Chism's research facility in Uganda is a pile of ashes, and Auma even sees a chance to kidnap Ward, who'd funded the lab. But Ward didn't make a trillion dollars by just giving up when things turn ugly. President Cook is angry that Rapp is interfering, saving lives and stuff. Indeed, the first lady calls Rapp "the guy every man wants to be." He lives in South Africa these days, but his loyalty to his homeland is steadfast. When a Saudi considers torturing the hero, he asks, "Do you know your weakness, Mitch?…It's your unwavering belief in America." That's wrong, of course, because Rapp has no obvious weaknesses. Even so, he and his protectees have many powerful and capable enemies. He's not the edgiest protagonist ever, but he's hard to kill and easy to root for. A serviceable thriller with plenty of satisfying action. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.