Vince Flynn
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Vince Flynn is a best-selling American author of political thriller novels. He lives with his wife and three children in the Twin Cities, where he is working on a series of political thriller novels. He also served as a story consultant for the fifth season of the 24 television series.
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[edit] Biography
Vince Flynn is a graduate of Saint Thomas Academy and the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota). After graduating from college, Vince Flynn went to work for Kraft Foods, where he was an account and sales marketing specialist. In 1990, he left Kraft to accept an aviation candidate slot with the United States Marine Corps. One week before leaving for Officer Candidate School, he was medically disqualified from the Marine Aviation Program.
Growing up with dyslexia, the fifth of seven children in an Irish-American family, Flynn had long been terrified of the written word. Determined to overcome his problem, Flynn forced himself into a daily writing and reading regimen. Quotes Flynn: "I started reading everything I could get my hands on, Hemingway, Ludlum, Clancy, Tolkien, Vidal. I read fiction, nonfiction, anything, but I especially loved espionage."
Flynn soon created an idea for a book, which would grow into his first bestseller, Term Limits. "I had just finished reading The Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z, by Martin L. Gross. It is without a doubt the most disheartening and enlightening book about politics that I've ever read. I was out jogging one day wondering what it would take to really change Washington, when my thoughts turned to a friend who had been shot and killed in Washington, D.C., several summers earlier. As I continued running, a story started to unfold."
Flynn worked as a bartender in St. Paul area bars, Tiffany's Lounge (aka Tiff's), Plums, and O'Gara's, while he worked on his book in the early 1990s.
Pocket Books published Term Limits in hardcover 1998. It was well received by reviewers. When the mass market paperback of Term Limits was released in 1999, it spent several weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Pocket Books followed this initial success with Flynn's 1999 hardcover book, Transfer of Power, which also garnered enthusiastic reviews, and when it was released a few months later in mass market paperback, it too spent several weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.
In the Fall of 2000, The Third Option was published and instantly landed on The New York Times bestseller list as well. In 2001, his fourth novel was published, Separation of Power, which also quickly landed on the bestsellers lists, reaching as high as #7 on The New York Times list. His fifth novel, Executive Power, was published in hardcover by Atria Books in May 2003 and was also a New York Times bestseller. His sixth novel, Memorial Day, was published in 2004. His seventh novel, Consent To Kill, was published in hardcover on October 10, 2005. His eighth novel, Act Of Treason, was published in October 2006.
Memorial Day, published by Atria books in May 2004, was his sixth novel and was put under security review by the department of energy due to classified material that appeared in the book. This classified material dealt with nuclear security and was mentioned in internal memos by the FBI and Secret Service.
Flynn has written six New York Times bestsellers for Atria Books, and has a contract for four more. He remembers deciding between following the path that was the most uncomfortable — continuing with what looked to be a promising career as a commercial real estate leasing agent — or take a big risk and start a new career as a writer. “ I look back on it now and I couldn’t be happier with my decision, but at the time I remember a lot of people thought I was nuts.”
In February 2008, Flynn agreed on film and book projects with CBS Corporation units CBS Films and Simon & Schuster/Atria Books. Lorenzo di Bonaventura are negotiating to produce Mitch Rapp films. Atria Books got worldwide rights to four books by the author.[1]
[edit] Bibliography
- Term Limits (1997) - ISBN 0-671-02317-9 (contains some of the characters from the Mitch Rapp series, but Rapp himself does not appear).
[edit] Mitch Rapp Series
Mitch Rapp is a CIA Special Activities Staff ("black ops") counterterrorism agent. In the novels in the series, Mitch is concerned with thwarting Middle Eastern terrorist attacks on the United States.
- Transfer of Power (1999) - ISBN 0-671-02319-5
- The Third Option (2000) - ISBN 0-671-04731-0
- Separation of Power (2001) - ISBN 0671047337
- Executive Power (2002) - ISBN 0-7434-5395-6
- Memorial Day (2004) - ISBN 0-7434-5397-2
- Consent to Kill (2005) - ISBN 0-7432-7036-3
- Act of Treason (2006) - ISBN 0-7432-7037-1
- Protect and Defend (October 30, 2007) - ISBN 978-0743270410
- Extreme Measures (October 28 2008)ISBN-13: 978-1416599395 (according to Amazon.com)
