Thought I would share this cartoon I drew in 2009. Many know I’m kinda-sorta an all out book nut. One book espionage series I love is the Vince Flynn series of espionage thrillers featuring, American hero, Mitch Rapp. This cartoon was for my home base for editorial cartoons that was having the author on to promote his book. Each Halloween since, the publishers of Mitch Rapp are so kind as to resend out this cartoon.

Since this cartoon came out, unfortunately Flynn has died. The series is just restarting this week with another author I’m very familiar with, Kyle Mills (author). Mills is great and I’m really looking forward to the new adventures of Mitch Rapp!

American Assassin by Vince Flynn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not my favorite of the series. This is a better written book. It’s also overwritten, much like most contemporary novels of today. I believe, after reading the other ten books, this is my first complaint of Flynn doing this. This would have been so much better as three separate books with fewer flashbacks.

With so much stuffed in 500 pages, no one will leave this book not knowing who the central characters are. Flynn has a lot of room to flesh out the start of the clandestine activities of his hero Mich Rapp. He does that and more by connecting all the other characters that appear in the series.

The story, as usual, could very possibly be happening today, but this is set in the past. I wonder if other readers notice the absence of cell phones and iPads? This is what Flynn did best in this book: Set a story in the past and have it seem as if it could be happening today.

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e_BouThe Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very enthralling and involved story of an amnesiac who finds out he is an assassin and wants to know why. Author Robert Ludlum created a very thorough story that, though a little wordy in dialogue, is otherwise concise in a long narrative way.

Unlike so many of today’s super spies who are out to kill, the main character, Jason Bourne, turns pacifist as an amnesiac. Though there is violence, it is far less than in current similar themed novels by Vince Flynn or Brad Thor. This is more of a study of a person trying to find themselves.

I love the series by folks like Flynn because they are so much fun to read. But, in light of Ludlum, they are missing the important parts of the story that makes the Ludlum book so much better in it’s writing and plotting.

About the movie: It might as well been named the Schwartz Identity. It’s a separate world than the one Ludlum created and made for the financial purposes of the film industry.

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WOW! I got behind posting the books I’ve read! This should catch is up. To date, this year, I’ve got 25 under my belt.

Here’s this list:
Dade’s Last Command : The non-fiction story of Francis Dade and his soldiers in 1835 and the massacre that followed that started the 2nd Seminole War. Excellent!

Separation of Power: Vince Flynn’s 3rd novel of Mitch Rapp and his war on terrorism. Not the best of the series that I’ve read yet.

The Lincoln Lawyer: A fellow cartoonist recommended author Michael Connelly, so I read this. Maybe I should read another…

Night of Thunder: I continue to read a few contemporary authors and continue to be disappointed. This would have been OK, if I hadn’t figured out the ‘Big Twist’ as soon as the character was introduced.

A Brief History of the Everglades City Area: Good stories, but could have used some fleshing out. The stories are a bit too short. I’m just glad this volume got put together to help document the area in Collier County.

Blackwater Sound: Back to Florida fiction and James W. Hall does it again. I’d put off reading this for a few years and it was great riding an adventure with Thorn again.

True Tales of the Everglades: A fine collection of stories by an author who knows them.

Nuclear Jellyfish: A fun Serge Storm’s story as the serial killer continues his hilarious mayhem across our state of Florida.

Cracker Florida: Don’t know what author Washington was thinking, but most all profiled in this volume are not Crackers. All of the stories are about folks in later years in Florida and what happened from their time moving to Florida or the few with a lifetime here.

The Dreadful Lemon Sky: I bought my friend Jeremy a copy of this book when it struck me it had been 30 years since I read it. So I read it again. WOW! What a difference part of a lifetime makes. Still one of my favorite books, but my understanding and working knowledge of Florida really assisted me in appreciating the story.

Pelts, Plume and Hides – White Traders among the Seminole Indians 1870 – 1930: An excellent examination of the Semino0le and Mikasuki people and their interaction in terms of trade with the white man during the years stated. Terrific book!

Here’s the first books of the year! I kicked the year off with a Vince Flynn thriller. Then I moved on to reading of the 2nd Seminole War. That lead me to read of the life of Thomas S. Jesup. I went back to Flynn’s third book. I wandered into the Everglades and back to war with ‘Discovering the Civil War in Florida’.

Two more Florida based mysteries read. One of Mignon Eberhart’s Tampa Bay novels and a later Miami-based Mike Shayne mystery. Eberhart writes of a fictious Florida County on the east coast with a pretty good understanding of the area. The Shayne novel is after the actual series by Dave Dresser. This one stays pretty true to the original series, just with curse words. I veered into one of Vince Flynn’s latest, ‘Protect and Defend’. Another good thriller.

Three more books read. Another exciting Vince Flynn Mitch Rapp book finished. Ready for another one!

But I wanted to get a James Lee Burke novel wrapped as I knew I was seeing my good friend Jeff Parker, who has often recommended the author. Rob, the coffee shop fellow, warned me I wouldn’t like it. He was right. The main character was reeeeeeaaal depressing and I didn’t like him or much of anyone else in the book. In that way, it reminded me of Randy Wayne White.

I went back to reading through the Laurence Will series. This time ‘Okeechobee Catfishing’. It’s a history of catfishing in Lake Okeechobee in it’s prime years of 1900 to 1920. A lot of repetition of stories from earlier books, but still fun stories and fine information is included.