In this exclusive interview, Don Bentley joins us to officially reveal the title of the next Mitch Rapp thriller: Double Tap.
And he confirms it will take place after Denied Access as the fourth book in the American Assassin prequel series!
We break down what the title means, what fans can expect from the next installment in the Vince Flynn universe, and how Bentley is shaping his own voice for the Mitch Rapp series.
If you’re a Mitch Rapp fan, this is can’t-miss intel.
—
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📚 ABOUT NO LIMITS:
• The Mitch Rapp Podcast: Deep dives into Vince Flynn & Kyle Mills' Mitch Rapp series.
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00:00:17
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:21
And welcome back to this week's No Limits the Thriller podcast.
00:00:25
What's new this week, Mike? You sure it's the Thriller
00:00:28
podcast or are we about to be the Mitch Rap podcast?
00:00:33
Going back in time Mitch rap podcast yes yes yes a.
00:00:37
Little throwback today is something special.
00:00:40
We were offered a special exclusive, the first ones to
00:00:45
interview Don Bentley since today the title was revealed for
00:00:51
the next Mitch Rap book, Mitch Rap 25, and we got to ask the
00:00:54
man himself, Don Bentley, about it right here on the pod.
00:00:57
That was fun. Yeah.
00:00:59
The way you'll hear it is that we strong armed our our quote UN
00:01:04
quote friend David the mystery bus Brown indicating this
00:01:11
interview. But I will say organically, our
00:01:13
patrons, they're the ones that work, not us.
00:01:17
We just talked about it and you know, hey, if it happens to
00:01:22
generate an interview with the author, so be it.
00:01:26
We'll take it. But in exchange for us not
00:01:30
posting and giving away the title because we we discovered
00:01:32
it, we did a little sleuthing and found it early.
00:01:35
We agreed to hold off on that until the announcement date.
00:01:38
And because of that, they gave us a little little extra special
00:01:41
bump. But it was, it was great talking
00:01:43
to Don. I think one of the most
00:01:44
intriguing things he says is we are going back post denied
00:01:49
access pre transfer of power. We are back with an early rap.
00:01:54
So I I was really happy to just kind of close the loop on that
00:01:57
because we were wondering, is he going to jump timelines again
00:01:59
the way capture kill was slotted in?
00:02:01
Are we going to go back to the modern day contemporary rap post
00:02:05
Code Red in the Kyle Mills verse?
00:02:07
And it was really good to hear from Don that he had a vision.
00:02:10
And as you'll hear him say, that vision is based on what he
00:02:13
thought Vince Flynn would have wanted.
00:02:15
And the research he's he found where Vince did publicly state
00:02:19
in the archives that he thought the American Assassin trilogy
00:02:23
could actually be a four book arc.
00:02:25
And I'm really glad to hear that he was motivated by what Vince
00:02:29
Flynn would have wanted and and documentation of Vince Flynn
00:02:32
saying there should be a fourth book in the series.
00:02:35
Yeah. So you'll find out the the title
00:02:40
with our interview with Don right now.
00:02:46
Today we are joined by a special guest.
00:02:49
You know him, you love him. You heard him here before on the
00:02:51
podcast. Welcome back to sleight of hand,
00:02:54
Don Bentley. Do you know why I'm giving you
00:02:58
that nickname? I don't, but I think it might
00:03:01
have something to do with the reason why you got this
00:03:04
interview, because you guys blackmailed publicist.
00:03:09
I think he may have offered to name his second born child after
00:03:12
you guys, but you settled for an interview with me so I
00:03:15
appreciate that. That's great.
00:03:20
Yeah, that's part of it. But the other part is you did
00:03:22
something tricky that not too many people would have picked up
00:03:25
on. But our listeners, the patrons
00:03:27
of Thriller Pod, they noticed a little tap, tap of the two books
00:03:30
you had in your last social media post that that was that, a
00:03:34
little teaser. I mean, it might have been, it
00:03:36
might have been significant and I can't get anything past your
00:03:40
patrons. No, it's it's, it's pretty hard.
00:03:45
Die hard fans over here. Yeah, just to fill in the gaps,
00:03:48
if you guys missed it, Don posted a really phenomenal
00:03:51
little clip, a clue, a teaser. It got it wet the whistle of all
00:03:54
rap fans worldwide. And he's holding up separation
00:03:59
of power, transfer of power, saying that's gives us some sort
00:04:03
of clue to the next book. So maybe, Don, tonight you can
00:04:06
give us a little insight into to what that hint meant.
00:04:08
Help us maybe decode that puzzle and tell us why you know you
00:04:12
chose to tap those two books together and what that means for
00:04:15
the next Mitch Rap book. Yeah, so I guess we should start
00:04:19
with the tap. So the first you're going to
00:04:23
hear it here before anywhere else, because you guys play hard
00:04:27
knuckle, hard knuckle podcasting.
00:04:31
The title for Mitch Rap 25 is double tap.
00:04:36
And yeah, yes, you guys, it was it was super fun going back and
00:04:42
forth with the title. I had a, It's funny, sometimes
00:04:46
you have, when you're writing the book, you have a title in
00:04:49
mind and it kind of grows into it.
00:04:51
And then sometimes after you're done or as you're finishing, you
00:04:55
give a bunch of titles and you start brainstorming.
00:04:58
And so Double Tap didn't come from me.
00:05:02
It came from the amazing folks at Atria Books, Emily Bestseller
00:05:07
books. But once I heard it, I'm like,
00:05:09
oh, that's perfect. That will actually sync up with
00:05:12
something I'm trying to do with the book itself.
00:05:14
So you have to it, it fits kind of with kill shot.
00:05:18
You know, you got kill shot and you got Double tap.
00:05:20
But I will say that double Tap in this instance is probably a
00:05:24
little bit different than what people are thinking it means.
00:05:27
And so it's an, another little, little teaser for the book.
00:05:33
I also don't, I think the, when we're taping this, the copy for
00:05:38
the actual book is out now, the new copy and stuff.
00:05:41
And so I'll talk about that. I don't, I what I, what I will
00:05:44
say about this book is that we are staying with the American
00:05:48
Assassin timeline. And so this will be the 4th book
00:05:51
in the American Assassin timeline.
00:05:53
It was really interesting. I'd had this idea for a while
00:05:56
and then was looking through some questions that Vince had
00:06:01
answered. If you go to the Vince Flynn
00:06:02
website, there are a whole bunch of different actually broken
00:06:05
down by time period. And somebody asked him, hey, do
00:06:09
you want to write more peak prequels?
00:06:11
And he's like, I think fours the right number.
00:06:13
And so just so happens that this is now the 4th prequel and it is
00:06:20
going to take place right after Denied Access.
00:06:22
And I did give a hint of two other books that are important.
00:06:26
I don't want to say why those are important because that would
00:06:29
be no fun. But for if you're a new Mitch
00:06:32
rap, new to the Mitch rap, you will not miss anything.
00:06:35
If you are a huge fan like the people in your patrons are,
00:06:40
you'll probably see a couple nods to those two books in
00:06:43
Double Tap. I guess my first question is
00:06:48
like what led you to want to continue the denied access
00:06:51
story? Yeah, I so I was going back and
00:06:55
forth. I had an idea for what I would
00:06:58
do if I picked up after Red War and kind of flesh that out.
00:07:02
And then I also had an idea for what I would do after denied
00:07:07
access. And I went back and forth for a
00:07:09
long time and actually talked to Emily Bessler about both.
00:07:13
And I was really expecting her to kind of make the decision for
00:07:17
me and say, hey, this is what I think you should do.
00:07:20
And she said both of those ideas sound great and I think you
00:07:23
should pick the one that gets you most excited to tell that
00:07:26
story. And so there were still a couple
00:07:30
loose ends remaining in the pre prequel universe for Vince Flynn
00:07:37
and Mr. Mitch Rap. And I thought, I think I got AI
00:07:40
got a pull on those strings some more.
00:07:42
Yeah, nice. Yeah, no, I mean, we definitely
00:07:46
like we our our whistle was wet with denied access, but you
00:07:50
know, it definitely wasn't satiated.
00:07:52
So I'm, I'm super excited because, you know, we after the
00:07:55
last last book, both me and Mike where we had a couple paws.
00:07:59
Just disgusting, like, all right, what what what are you
00:08:01
going to do, you know so. Right, you you pulled on the
00:08:04
greatest string. That was one thing fans wanted
00:08:06
and you know, you helped give us a little more insight.
00:08:09
I just so many other places you can go between there and I guess
00:08:13
transfer of power would be the next time we see Mitch rap in
00:08:15
the timeline. But we do know term limits was
00:08:18
happening as well in the background.
00:08:19
So God, my mind just goes crazy. And then because you posted the
00:08:23
thing about separation of power, I went back and started
00:08:26
rereading that one. Holy moly, we're getting Hank
00:08:28
Clark Congressman rude. And just like there's all these
00:08:31
characters coming out as hot and heavy.
00:08:32
I'm like to to kind of make connections and find your lane.
00:08:36
There's a million ways that can happen and I'd be happy with any
00:08:39
one of them. Yeah, it was.
00:08:41
So it was super interesting when when I was reading in that same
00:08:45
batch of questions, somebody asked Vince, hey, I can't
00:08:50
remember if they asked him how old Mitch was or something about
00:08:54
the time frame of kill shot. And he said, I refuse to answer
00:08:58
that because I refuse to be tied down.
00:09:00
But when when I was doing the math and talking to Kyle about
00:09:04
it and we were trying to figure it out, I may have even asked
00:09:06
Ryan Steck about at one point at his take.
00:09:09
I think most estimates have somewhere between about nine
00:09:14
years or so from the end of kill shot to when term limits picks
00:09:19
up or excuse me, when transfer of Power picks up and we see
00:09:22
Mitch for the first time. And so there are a lot of things
00:09:25
that can happen in those nine years and hopefully you get to
00:09:28
see some of them in Double Tap. All right, wow, that's
00:09:33
promising. Now the description gets into a
00:09:38
jihadi cell. So, you know, I'm also trying to
00:09:40
figure out, because, you know, you did the bin Laden story,
00:09:42
which was just genius to find out how that in our world could
00:09:46
relate to the Mitch rap universe.
00:09:48
And now that I'm hearing about a jihadi cell in that timeline,
00:09:51
I'm wondering how you're going to flesh that out.
00:09:53
So can you give us a little bit of hint about where we are with
00:09:55
this cell? Yeah.
00:09:57
So what's what's super neat about the way Vince wrote Mitch
00:10:03
is he had a lot of what I call kind of throwaway details where
00:10:07
he just references, hey, Mitch did this or this thing happened
00:10:11
or like one of them he talks about.
00:10:14
I think it might have even been in in transfer of power where
00:10:18
that the Air Force smart bombs aren't as great as they they
00:10:21
actually pretend to be in that Mitch Rapp spent a lot of time
00:10:26
laying on a building somewhere lazing targets for Air Force
00:10:30
fighters, which is really, really interesting, but really,
00:10:33
really different from anything that we've seen Mitch do in any
00:10:37
of the Vince or Kyle books. And so along those same lines,
00:10:40
he also, you know, in Transfer of Power, you have Mitch rap
00:10:46
undercover when the book, when the book begins and that he's
00:10:51
nosing around as acting like he's this old man.
00:10:55
And so he's obviously been undercover before and has done
00:10:59
it, but we never got to see kind of the first time he had to go
00:11:02
undercover. And actually, you know, he was
00:11:04
picked up for his role on the Orion team, not just just
00:11:09
because he was phenomenal athlete, not just because he
00:11:13
could speak Arabic like a native, but because he looks
00:11:16
like he belongs in those countries, right?
00:11:18
That he's his his features, his complexions that he can pass for
00:11:23
a native. But what's interesting is that
00:11:25
you see and kill shot Mitch is not working in a foreign
00:11:30
country, right? He's working in Paris.
00:11:32
And so even though he has this ability to pass that way, where
00:11:36
Vince was using him in these books is in Europe a lot, right?
00:11:39
He's going across these, he's servicing targets.
00:11:42
And I thought, well, what would that look like?
00:11:44
What would that look like the first time he actually
00:11:46
transitions from, hey, I'm a guy who just goes out and and kills
00:11:51
people on the hit list to now I have to take that a step further
00:11:54
and actually put a legend to use and go undercover and, and
00:11:59
actually use all of those attributes that make him so
00:12:03
unique. And so you get to see some of
00:12:04
that and double tap. Cool.
00:12:09
What? What was it like writing this
00:12:11
book this time around? This is your third book around,
00:12:15
Like, was it easier? Was it harder?
00:12:17
I think it was harder just from the standpoint that it's my 11th
00:12:24
book total. And so when I, when I was
00:12:27
talking to Brad Taylor about this, who I think is maybe in
00:12:31
the 20s or something of his books, he said that any scene
00:12:35
that he writes now that comes easy.
00:12:37
He knows that's because he's already written that scene
00:12:40
before. And so he has to go back and
00:12:41
look at that. And so you have to spend a lot
00:12:44
of time thinking not just in the Mitch world, but in the other
00:12:47
books I've written, what have I done before?
00:12:49
How can I make it different? How can you you, you want to
00:12:53
both, especially with a Mitch book, you want to have it
00:12:56
approachable for folks who have never read the series before,
00:13:00
but still give the folks who have been in this case on the
00:13:06
hook for all 25 Mitch books a reason to come back and still
00:13:09
tell a compelling story and still do all of those things
00:13:13
that make Mitch rap books, Mitch rap books.
00:13:15
And so I think when I wouldn't, maybe even maybe when I knew
00:13:22
that I had the job to take over for Kyle, I had in my head kind
00:13:27
of that bin Laden idea that had been going around for a while.
00:13:30
And then for Denied Access, I knew that I wanted to continue
00:13:36
and and write the last book in the original prequel trilogy.
00:13:40
And so I had that. This one was a little more
00:13:41
difficult just from the standpoint of like, I know this
00:13:44
is the time period I want to write in.
00:13:46
I know here are kind of some of the threads that I want to pull
00:13:48
on. I have sort of this idea for for
00:13:51
a story and how that could be compelling.
00:13:54
But putting it all together in a way that meets the very high
00:13:58
standards for Mitch Rap fans was certainly pretty difficult.
00:14:04
Yeah, we're a tough audience sometimes, but I think it's
00:14:07
because people are so invested. I I think people are so invested
00:14:10
in Mitch rap more than other series.
00:14:12
Usually it it just means something different to them,
00:14:14
like I know it does for the two of us.
00:14:16
The reason why this part exists exactly?
00:14:18
Exactly. We had to think long and hard
00:14:20
about wow, we're really going to finish reviewing the the last
00:14:24
Mitch rap book at that time. Is it worth doing another series
00:14:27
or what other series would we want to move into?
00:14:29
And yeah, I don't know. It was it was kind of tough
00:14:31
transition to to be like, wow, we're not going to talk every
00:14:33
single week about Mitch rap. We're going to talk once a year
00:14:36
about it. Thanks to you, you know,
00:14:38
resurrecting it and keeping it alive.
00:14:39
So yeah. And Kyle, I remember he talked
00:14:43
about that balance of wanting to the survivor was going to the
00:14:49
survivor was going to be a forgery, but then eventually he
00:14:51
needed to find his own voice in the series.
00:14:53
Do you feel like a third book is a good point at which you've
00:14:56
developed what you consider, you know, the Don Bentley version of
00:14:59
a Mitch rap book or the Don Bentley spin or or voice of
00:15:02
Mitch rap? Yeah, I think so.
00:15:06
I think you. I don't know how many it took.
00:15:09
I've never asked Kyle that how many it took for him to feel
00:15:12
comfortable or to feel, Hey, I've got that.
00:15:16
Or maybe he never did. Maybe he went.
00:15:18
I I certainly like I'm in the editing phase for for the book
00:15:22
right now. It's due in about a month.
00:15:24
And so every time I get to the point where I'm doing edits, I
00:15:28
reread at least one of Vince's books, especially now because of
00:15:32
the timeline it's in, because you you just want to go back
00:15:35
again and say, like, how did I have in my head how Stan Hurley
00:15:39
behaves? How does he really, how does,
00:15:42
how does Vince write him and how he behaves, right?
00:15:45
How to how, what are what are the ways that that Mitch talks
00:15:49
about certain people or what are the things?
00:15:51
And I think that, you know, constantly I, I don't know that
00:15:54
I'll ever get to the point where I feel like I have it figured
00:15:58
out enough that I don't want to go back to a Vince book and and
00:16:02
you know, go back to the source. Like what I said before when I
00:16:05
was writing Capture Kill, it was by no means saying that I wanted
00:16:11
to take a break from what Kyle did or or take things in a
00:16:14
different direction. I just wanted to go back to what
00:16:17
in my mind was the source material right?
00:16:19
The that Mitch that Vince wrote instead of.
00:16:23
And what I didn't want to write was a derivative of a derivative
00:16:26
of that my Mitch would be, which in some ways it's going to be
00:16:30
anyway, because I'm not Vince and I can't write like he is and
00:16:33
I'm not Kyle and I can't write like he is.
00:16:35
But that idea of that, instead of Mitch slowly changing with
00:16:39
each writer to still be able to go back and to the source
00:16:42
material and say, what is vintage Mitch?
00:16:46
How did he think? What was he like when he was 20
00:16:49
something years old? And and to use that to kind of
00:16:53
inform the stories I'm telling is has been super helpful.
00:16:58
Yeah, and it's clear you've poured your heart and just and
00:17:02
soul into doing that with these last few books.
00:17:05
Do you ever envision yourself writing a book with an older
00:17:10
rapper, more contemporary rap, post Code Red or post Kyle era?
00:17:13
Or should whatever contract stage negotiation look like?
00:17:18
Would you want to stay in this time period with the younger rap
00:17:20
that you've you've really honed in on or or could you see
00:17:23
yourself branching out in the series down the road?
00:17:26
Yeah, for sure. I I think I'd go back to what
00:17:29
Emily said when I gave her two different story ideas and she's
00:17:34
and she's like, you're the writer, you're gonna spend a
00:17:36
year with this book. You need to tell the story that
00:17:39
makes you the most excited. And so I think I have some ideas
00:17:44
already for the next book of what because as all writers do,
00:17:47
as you're finishing the one that that that you're about to turn
00:17:50
in, you're tired of it and you want to go on to something else.
00:17:53
And that's when you have your best ideas that are trying to
00:17:55
keep you from finishing the book that you're working on.
00:17:58
And so I, I certainly would not rule any of that out doing any
00:18:02
of that stuff. I'm not by any means, and not,
00:18:05
man, I never envisioned writing the first three books, all in
00:18:10
Vince's era, Mitch, there wasn't any kind of conscious decision I
00:18:14
made. It was just the stories that
00:18:16
came to mind that I thought I could tell really well.
00:18:19
And so I wouldn't, I would not read anything into what I'm
00:18:23
going to do next based on what I've done so far, for sure.
00:18:28
Good to hear. Yeah.
00:18:28
I mean, but we definitely enjoyed at least what you've
00:18:31
added to the series. Thank you.
00:18:34
I guess, you know, I'll be the devil's advocate.
00:18:37
What what about what about Matt Drake?
00:18:39
Are we have you thought about him at all?
00:18:40
Like you know, we we have other other fans that are non Mitch
00:18:44
rap fans that are clamouring for the next Matt Drake novel.
00:18:48
Yeah. So I got to do some, Yeah.
00:18:49
And, and Fred, I got to do some Matt Drake stuff this year and
00:18:53
that I've got a little over a year ago, we entered into an
00:18:58
agreement with a, a studio to do ATV version of Matt Drake.
00:19:02
And they brought in a couple of different writers.
00:19:05
And, and what you do as the, as the writer of the original
00:19:09
source material is you're trying to be helpful, but you're also
00:19:12
trying to explain you don't know when to stay out of the way, but
00:19:15
also be able to say, hey, here is what makes this series
00:19:19
different and why it's different from anything else that's on TV.
00:19:23
Because whether it's true or not, all of us writers believe
00:19:26
that what we have written is completely unique and and could
00:19:29
not be, could not be written again by just anyone.
00:19:32
And so over that, over that, the course of going back and forth
00:19:37
with the producer, I said, hey, what if I wrote the pilot?
00:19:40
And he said, OK, let's give that a shot.
00:19:43
And he really liked it. And I got to do another version
00:19:46
of the pilot. And so it was a ton of fun to go
00:19:49
back and write Matt and Frodo again a figuring out how to
00:19:54
adapt that for TV. And so that was super fun.
00:19:58
I got to spend some time with him doing that.
00:20:01
There's another project that I can't announce just yet.
00:20:05
We're finishing the contract for that.
00:20:09
It should be announced and pretty soon that'll also come
00:20:11
out this year. Not necessarily a Matt Drake
00:20:15
project per SE, and still trying to figure out what it's going to
00:20:19
look like. So there will be something else
00:20:20
from me this year and then I have.
00:20:22
A standalone that I've been working on way too long.
00:20:25
I would have finished it this year if I hadn't gone back and
00:20:28
written that pilot. And I'm about halfway through
00:20:32
with that. So I think, oh, I know that the
00:20:35
other thing coming out this year will be before the next Matt
00:20:38
Drake book. I think.
00:20:41
I think the standalone probably will be too.
00:20:45
Maybe we'll get to do something with the TV stuff.
00:20:47
But I haven't forgotten about Matt and Frodo for sure, and
00:20:52
intend to come back to them at some point.
00:20:54
But I'm very, very fortunate that I have more projects than I
00:20:57
have time to work on them right now.
00:21:00
That's, that's good to hear. Good to hear, Yeah.
00:21:02
They're, they're keeping you busy with all this.
00:21:05
So we do want to let you go. But one last thing is can you
00:21:08
give us any insight to the cover for Double Tap?
00:21:11
Has that been decided on? Is it?
00:21:13
Do you? Have you seen any mock ups or
00:21:15
rough drafts? I have seen the mock ups and
00:21:18
we've gone through two versions of it and the the kind of the
00:21:23
best cop covers in the in the world, I think are the ones you
00:21:28
haven't really thought of. And then when you see it, it's
00:21:31
like they reached into your brain and pulled out what you
00:21:34
couldn't articulate. And this one is that 1.
00:21:36
And so I think you guys will have to work your magic with
00:21:39
David, but I think you're going to be seeing the cover pretty
00:21:42
soon. OK, well, you know, we'll be
00:21:45
bugging him. David's our our best friend and
00:21:50
our our our least favorite. Like he well, where are his
00:21:53
least favorite persons? So.
00:21:56
He's the guy. He's on caller ID and he's like,
00:21:59
no, no, what did they figure out this time?
00:22:02
Yeah. Yeah, well, we won't spoil any
00:22:04
more of the secrets. If we get them, we'll we'll run
00:22:06
them by David 1st and hopefully we'll blackmail him into having
00:22:09
you back again. Yeah.
00:22:12
Absolutely. Definitely.
00:22:13
Yeah, best of luck with all those projects and looking
00:22:16
forward to an announcement about the tour because the book comes
00:22:19
out September 15th. Is it mid-september?
00:22:22
Sometime in September, yeah. They tend to mess around with
00:22:25
the actual dates a little bit, but I think it'll be sometime in
00:22:28
September. And is he going to send you out?
00:22:30
Is he going to pick some cities for you to go go tour?
00:22:33
And that's what I try. And I'm going to start giving
00:22:36
out his e-mail address every time somebody tweets at me.
00:22:39
And I'm like, talk to the mystery bus guy.
00:22:41
I'm, I'm not the guy that decides.
00:22:43
So yeah. Well, we'll strong arment him
00:22:46
into sending you to DC so we could do a live event with you.
00:22:48
What do you think? Yeah, that'd be awesome.
00:22:50
Or maybe, well, you live in Texas.
00:22:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My my sister-in-law lives in
00:22:56
Fort Worth, so maybe I'll I'll come visit you in Texas.
00:22:59
Yeah, that's only about 3 hours up the road, so that's not very
00:23:02
far in Texas distance. So around the corner.
00:23:07
Yeah. Because Matt Drake's a Texas
00:23:08
guy, now that I think about it. Right.
00:23:09
Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
00:23:11
Cool. All right.
00:23:12
Well, thanks, Don. We can't wait for this book and
00:23:14
all the buzz on social media over the next few months.
00:23:16
And it's always that summer, you know, summer's coming to an end,
00:23:19
and everyone's looking forward to it.
00:23:21
And I know, right. When I go back to school, I'm a
00:23:22
teacher. When the Mitch rap book comes,
00:23:24
I'm like, drop all the stress. Everything in my life right now.
00:23:28
It's Mitch Rap season comes in September, so looking forward to
00:23:31
talking to you a little closer to that.
00:23:33
Absolutely. Thanks guys.
00:23:34
I appreciate it. So double tap, what do you, what
00:23:43
do you, what do you think about the the title then?
00:23:46
Wow. Well, I I thought one thing.
00:23:49
But now with Don saying it's not what?
00:23:51
You think it is differently like now?
00:23:53
Now my mind is racing. First time I heard it I thought
00:23:56
the Mozambique method how that's always mentioned.
00:23:58
I think Jack put in his books, I think it was in the early books,
00:24:02
2 taps to the centre mass, one tap to the forehead.
00:24:05
I was thinking the double tap was the was the two shots but
00:24:08
maybe it's not. A bullet is a double tap on a
00:24:09
trigger. I don't know.
00:24:12
Yeah, it's, I mean, opens up a whole bunch of different
00:24:17
scenarios. But, yeah, so one thing we
00:24:19
didn't get to really, like, dive into and didn't really want to
00:24:22
talk about before, like having done on just as like the the
00:24:26
book description that's going to come out like at the same time
00:24:29
when we're dropping this episode.
00:24:30
So just to read it out here, right.
00:24:33
Mitch Rapp signed up to be an assassin, a lone wolf who hunts
00:24:36
and kills his nation's enemies on their turf.
00:24:39
Now he has a new mission. When Mitch Mitch's target, a
00:24:42
Pakistani chemical weapons scientist for hire, is snatched
00:24:45
from the streets of Verona. The American assassin must
00:24:48
penetrate the jihadi cell responsible for this brazen
00:24:51
kidnapping before they can make use of the scientists deadly,
00:24:54
deadly expertise. The Mitch isn't the only one
00:24:57
interested in the scientist. The Pakistani represents an
00:25:01
existential threat. A threat that will fray
00:25:03
alliances, force enemies to seek common ground, and resurrect
00:25:07
long settled vendettas as the events triggered by the
00:25:12
kidnapping cascade out of control.
00:25:13
Mitrap must stop the chain reaction before the Middle East
00:25:16
reaches critical mass. That's we originally thought the
00:25:20
the title was going to be Critical Mass.
00:25:22
When that description ended with critical mass, I remember
00:25:24
thinking that so that vendetta, I almost wanted to ask him, but
00:25:29
I didn't want to press too hard it it seemed like he didn't want
00:25:31
to reveal too much. He mentioned that he he the
00:25:36
double tap was not not his idea. And not his idea, right?
00:25:42
And he kind of had to wonder about, like, how do I take this
00:25:45
title and what does it have to do with the book?
00:25:47
So yeah, I wonder what that editing process would have
00:25:50
looked like. But the one I wanted to ask
00:25:52
about the long standing vendettas.
00:25:53
We're resurrecting old vendettas.
00:25:55
Combine that with what he said in his other teaser on social
00:25:59
media, that this book is somehow related to transfer of power and
00:26:04
separation of power. I mean, there are so many
00:26:07
characters in those two books. If you take transfer of power,
00:26:10
separation of power, you could just list them off.
00:26:12
We're talking Rafiq, Aziz, General Flood, Donatella shows
00:26:16
up in separation of power a lot. I mean, there's just so many
00:26:20
different callbacks that you could do.
00:26:22
I really wonder about that little hint.
00:26:24
What does this book have to do with transfer of power and
00:26:26
separation of power? He didn't want to go too deep in
00:26:29
it, so I didn't press on. What are these long standing
00:26:31
vendettas? But.
00:26:32
The book isn't even submitted yet, so.
00:26:34
The book isn't even fully written yet and we've got till
00:26:37
September, so we're just jumping the gun here as we do on the
00:26:39
Mitch rap pod. But wow, I, I am so glad we're
00:26:44
back in this time period. I'll just say that.
00:26:47
Yeah, I think it's, it's, you know, I, I think when we did our
00:26:51
last pod discussing like the follow up of what speculating
00:26:54
what we thought could happen, you know, we had kind of
00:26:58
suggested that, hey, you know, this was definitely an option.
00:27:01
And now that we're definitely going to go down that route, I
00:27:05
think that's my preferred option.
00:27:07
Like instead of going, I don't know, I thought I do want to see
00:27:13
like what's after code, like a post code red wrap.
00:27:18
But you know, I think I kind of wait, I think there's, there's a
00:27:20
lot of meat on the still left on the bone, especially within this
00:27:24
time period out of the like the I guess the three options would
00:27:29
be this time period randomly inserting into another book or
00:27:34
following Kyle. If you're not going to just like
00:27:38
give your own story and follow Kyle, I would much rather you
00:27:40
just fill in this, do this because there's so many years
00:27:44
that we we've been speculating about that is left like I'd
00:27:48
rather you just do that. Like you mentioned what that
00:27:50
nine year gap before we get to transfer of power, Yeah.
00:27:53
And I think what's promising about that is it's why I asked
00:27:56
that question about Don Bentley's voice for the series.
00:27:58
It it really seems like it's in his wheelhouse, his his comfort
00:28:02
zone to write that younger rap and to be in the characters
00:28:06
heads where they were in that earlier time period 'cause even
00:28:10
him, his and Irene's relationship is very different
00:28:13
from then till now. He got to write Stan Hurley in
00:28:16
in the last book. So I feel like his wheelhouse is
00:28:19
that era, right? Well, late 90s ish and now,
00:28:25
yeah, I would probably say in the late 90s or so.
00:28:27
It just seems like so comfortable for him to write
00:28:29
that and he's establishing a voice.
00:28:31
So I think another book or more we'll we'll hear what happens
00:28:34
with announcements for the future.
00:28:35
But another book or more in this time period would definitely
00:28:38
satisfy my age. So I was fine with that
00:28:41
decision. Real happy to hear about it.
00:28:42
And I think it's it's his voice for the Mitch Rep series comes
00:28:46
through in this time period better than it may trying to
00:28:49
pick up with Kyle's time period. Who knows, but.
00:28:53
Yeah. And we're recording this
00:28:55
obviously before we've seen the cover, but he did mention that
00:28:57
maybe with this episode we might be able to drop the cover.
00:29:01
So we may have to like come back on and re record like a little
00:29:05
postscript about the cover. But cover 2 TBD, excited about
00:29:11
it. Double tap.
00:29:12
I'm I'm excited. Yeah.
00:29:16
So kill shot was a single single shot like double tap like all
00:29:20
right, you, you expanding on that like.
00:29:22
Just makes. Sense just makes sense.
00:29:23
It's so smart. It's so smart.
00:29:25
Yeah, we're in good hands, Chris.
00:29:29
Yeah, All right. Well, before we get out of here,
00:29:33
we have to thank our patrons. Like this episode wouldn't even
00:29:36
exist without our patrons because Adam was the one that
00:29:41
found this out and started this whole sleuthing exercise.
00:29:48
So need to think our patrons including.
00:29:50
Yeah, and if you want to join this elite group of the best
00:29:54
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00:30:22
Yeah, and look out for us, Doctor Con 2027, Washington, DC.
00:30:26
We're going to be there. Big things are planned.
00:30:28
All right, I have our list. Our deputy director, Sherry F
00:30:31
and Brad E, our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl, George,
00:30:36
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00:30:49
And as always, just let Mitch be Mitch.