Almost a month ago and I had no clue:
Best-selling author Vince Flynn, who wrote the Mitch Rapp counterterrorism thriller series and sold more
than 15 million books in the U.S. alone, died Wednesday in Minnesota after a more than two-year battle with prostate cancer, according to friends and his publisher. He was 47.
Flynn was supporting himself by bartending when he self-published his first novel, "Term Limits," in 1997 after getting more than 60 rejection letters. After it became a local best-seller, Pocket Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint, signed him to a two-book deal -- and "Term Limits" became a New York Times best-seller in paperback.
The St. Paul-based author also sold millions of books in the international market and averaged about a book a year, most of them focused on Rapp, a CIA counterterrorism operative. His 14th novel, "The Last Man," was published last year.
He counted former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton among his fans, as well as foreign leaders and intelligence community figures.
"As good as Vince was on the page -- and he gave millions of readers countless hours of pleasure -- he was even more engaging in person," said Carolyn Reidy, president and CEO of his publisher, Simon & Schuster. "Yes, we will miss the Mitch Rapp stories that are classic modern thrillers, but we will miss Vince even more."
Flynn died at a hospital in St. Paul, surrounded by about 35 relatives and friends who prayed the Rosary, said longtime family friend Kathy Schneeman. She said his deep Catholic faith was an important part of his character.
"That's what he would have liked. He talks about his faith just as much as he would talk about politics and current events with our group of friends," Schneeman said.
Flynn was born to an Irish Catholic family in St. Paul, the fifth of seven children. After graduating with an economics degree from the University of St. Thomas in 1988, he went to work as an account and sales marketing specialist with Kraft General Foods. That marketing background later came in handy as he promoted "Term Limits."
Wanting a new challenge, he quit Kraft in 1990 when he landed an aviation candidate slot with the Marine Corps, but he was later disqualified due to seizures he suffered following a childhood car accident. Thwarted from becoming a military aviator, he got the idea of writing thrillers.
"If (Tom) Clancy could do it, why can't I?" Flynn said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press.
He went to work for the Twin Cities based commercial real estate company United Properties and started working on a book idea in his spare time. Two years later, he quit so he could devote more time to writing and moved to Colorado. He began working on what became "Term Limits," a story about assassins who targeted fat-cat congressmen.
A man of almost superhero powers, Mitch Rapp races the clock to foil terrorists' plans to detonate a nuclear warhead in Washington in "Memorial Day" (2004), battles terrorists who seize the White House and take hostages in "Transfer of Power" (1999) and is out for vengeance after a Saudi billionaire puts a bounty on his head in "Consent to Kill" (2005).
Flynn told the AP that with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, he decided to write about terrorism.
I so enjoyed his novels, the first few particularly and did not know he was devoutly Catholic.
Way too young to die.
God rest him and comfort his loved ones.
