Fighting evil with fanatic determination

The world in bestselling author and Twin Cities native Vince Flynn's fiction is satisfyingly simple. There are bad guys and good guys, and it's the job of CIA counterterrorist agent Mitch Rapp to make sure the good guys win -- at any cost. In Flynn's world, the press is full of "commies," politicians are weak, and the people running the CIA and FBI have been "browbeaten by the media." Flynn's women are strong and his men are, well, good looking, and it's an ungrateful PC country that won't let Rapp and his partner, Mike Nash, loose in the Middle East.

Might, in Flynn's fictional world, does make right.

"Extreme Measures" ratchets up these elements and for Flynn fans the result is another rewarding thriller, ninth in the series. Two terrorist cells have been uncovered and their plans stymied, but a third, led by an Islamic fundamentalist, Karim, who needs a successful attack on U.S. soil to make a power play within Al-Qaida, is still on target. But before Rapp and Nash can attempt to stop it, they have to fight inner agency squabbling, bureaucratic grandstanding and, for Nash, unsympathetic demands from his wife.

Rapp is a renegade and a loner, but Nash is a family man. He drives a minivan and changes diapers with military precision, but he's far from father of the year. When Nash's son beats up a peer at his prep school, the justification for the attack seems a bit ridiculous even in Flynn's fictional world; nevertheless Nash rewards his son's behavior and belittles his wife's concerns about the boy's mounting aggression.

In fact, testosterone flows in torrents through these pages, which as far as I'm concerned is not necessarily a negative in a thriller. Lee Child and James Rollins are particular favorites of mine. The problem is Flynn's writing goes beyond machismo to subtly degrading women. Flynn's dialogue is peppered with language that's sexist in its connotations. His politicians are "henpecked," a cowardly Air Force captain is like "a wife who's been battered," and the "p" word is used with indiscriminate regularity.

That aside, the most interesting aspect of this thriller is the parallel that Flynn draws between Karim and Rapp. Flynn alternates his chapters with Karim as he attempts to carry out his dastardly deed and Rapp as he scrambles to thwart it. What becomes clear is that Rapp and Karim are essentially the same man. They both hold fundamentalist worldviews, both are alienated from their society, both are highly skilled soldiers, and both are willing to die for their causes. By the book's end, Flynn may be suggesting that we become those we fear the most.

Carole Barrowman is a professor in Milwaukee. She blogs at carolebarrowman.com.