Last Rapps

My wife continues to improve in her fight against a particularly nasty cold.  She’s returned to the phone lines which I take as a sign of significant improvement.  I did my part by surprising her with some roses – never underestimate the medical effects of floral arrangements in a marriage. She did not feel well enough to go the movies last night which turned out to be godsend.

Yesterday's Cold Remedy

I wasn’t so lucky.  She kicked me out of the house to allow her more quality phone time and knew I was jonesing a bit for my weekly cinema fix.  Since we’re saving Gone Girl until she’s well again I went to see Left Behind which I thought, from the previews, looked like a cool science fiction flick.  The word “cringe-worthy” leapt to mind less than ten minutes into this abomination and it only went down from there.  It is sad to see a once talented actor like Nicholas Cage sunk to this level.  Most of his stuff heads right to DVD now and he seems lost.

So Bad!

This is another one of those apocalyptic “rapture“ movies when millions of people suddenly disappear.  Cage plays a philandering airline pilot who’s trying to get back to his family in NYC with a panicked planeload after the mass disappearance.  There is absolutely nothing to recommend about this movie – the writing is awful although not as bad as the acting.  This may, in time, reach cult status for the stratospheric unintentional comedy level.  This is definitely a front runner for the worst movie of 2014 – a stinker on every level.

Yet another downer yesterday was finishing my last Mitch Rapp book, The Last Man by Vince Flynn.  I was dreading this because Mitch has definitely carved out a niche in my pantheon of literary action heroes joining the likes of Travis McGee, Jack Reacher, and Lucas Davenport.  Flynn tragically died last year at a very young age and I don’t want to say goodbye to Mitch and the surrounding characters which Flynn forced me to love.  Another and very heartfelt shout out to my secret 7th grade crush from Fitzy’s science class for bringing Flynn into my life, thank you very, very much.

Mitch is back in Afghanistan in the wake of the abduction of the CIA biggest asset.  He’s once again fighting the terrorists on one side and the progressive Washington politicians on the other.  The action is as unrelenting as the body count.  While the themes are the same I think Flynn knew this might be his last book because he brings back some old characters and puts Rapp in a good place by the end of the book.

The Kindle tells you how far, percentagewise, you are into the book.  I was filled with a little bit of anger as I reached the nineties and knew Mitch only had a few more pages to thrill on.  It was very much like saying goodbye to a very good friend.  I remember the same feeling when John D. MacDonald passed and I knew there would not be any more Travis McGees.   

I was surprised to learn this morning that the Flynn estate has commissioned another thriller writer, Kyle Mills, to continue the Rapp series so we haven’t seen the last on my redoubtable hero.  I’ll withhold judgment until I see his work – Flynn set the bar pretty high.  So, since I burned through all thirteen Rapp novels entirely too quickly I’m in search of another author to similarly abuse.  Anybody out there have any recommendations?  Maybe I’ll go back and re-read the McGee series.  It’s been nearly thirty years and I could use some time on the Busted Flush.

See You Soon Old Friend