Don Bentley Talks Double Tap, Mitch Rapp & Returning Characters (No Spoilers)

[00:00:08] Well guys, let's just kick it off because we are already deep into Double Tap here with Don Bentley and a real life character now in the Mitch Rapp series. Chris, welcome Chris. Thanks for being on with us tonight. Ooh! Pleasure. Pure pleasure now that I'm free. Yeah, Chris is free. If you remember, she was the inspiration behind the character of Chris in Denied Access. But Don, you took the jump from Denied Access to Double Tap and somewhere in the lingering future is Transfer of Power.

[00:00:36] So tell us still how it feels living in this timeline of an early Mitch Rapp. Yeah, it was still pretty neat when I didn't have any grand plans of writing three in the before Kyle timeline and two of them being prequels altogether. But it was interesting.

[00:00:58] I was every now and then when I get stuck or just looking for inspiration, I'll go through some of the old Q&A from Vince on the website. And somebody had asked him how many because he had said that he wanted to go back and write some prequels.

[00:01:16] And he said, well, somebody said, how many do you think there should be? And he said, I think four is about the right number. And I was like, that's it. We're doing another one. So the yeah, it was super fun to do. Really neat. Certainly, there's still a lot of development that goes on for Mitch Rapp between what was Denied Access and then Transfer of Power.

[00:01:40] And so one of the things I thought that would be fun with this book is to both bring in some fan favorite characters and maybe show them meeting Mitch the first time or meeting some of the other like Chris's favorite character. Scott Coleman is in there doesn't actually meet Mitch in the book, but he gets to meet meet Stan Hurley, which is kind of fun.

[00:02:01] And then also, you know, to me, and we've talked about this before, Transfer of Power and Mitch is this fully formed operative who is very, very distant from the guy we meet in Killshot and American Assassin. And so part of this book is hopefully filling in some of those gaps, too. I love that. I mean, something you didn't Denied Access was lean into both Stan Hurley, even Thomas Stansfield with the World War Two stuff.

[00:02:30] So I was wondering your plan to connect to the lore and this wider universe of Mitch Rapp. And Scott Coleman seems like a great fit, even though we know he has not met Mitch, you know, even as early as term limits. He doesn't know Mitch. Mitch isn't around. So that's interesting how you dealt with that. Were there any other kind of tricks you had to weave between trying to respect the lore, but also make a new story? Yeah, I knew. So the Scott Coleman scene, I knew, you know, as the book comes together without giving away any spoilers,

[00:03:00] at this point in the podcast, I knew geographically where I wanted the book to be. And I also knew that Vince had talked about that area before, too, and which book now escapes me. But I went back through and like, oh, there's this specific area in Saudi Arabia that Vince talks about and uses it as a launching off point. That would be really fun to revisit that the casual reader probably isn't going to pick up on.

[00:03:29] But the fans hopefully will be like, wait a minute. I've seen this before. And then also to be able to kind of pull Scott Coleman in there. And so when we meet, we've never seen Scott Coleman when he was still a SEAL, when he was still at the end of his career as the CEO of SEAL Team 6. And I thought that might be a really fun thing to do, too. And so you get to see both of those in this book. Yeah, because I feel like we meet him and he's had SEAL demolition company, you know, off and running.

[00:03:59] And we've only heard the story past and a checkered past, if you will, with term limits and the character that he was there. So I wonder, is he still a little maybe on the on the dark side of it all? Does he have shades of the term limits, Scott? Yeah, that's interesting. I think where what I was thinking about more, it's almost like and we have to say that Scott Coleman is Chris's favorite character. And so whenever he pops up, she gets very excited. And so I was thinking about that when I was writing him.

[00:04:26] But what I was thinking about it more, honestly, was kind of like the Top Gun Maverick, where you're trying to explain why is this guy that's a superstar? Why did he never make admiral? And I thought about that for Scott Coleman as well. It's like, why is this guy's in the Mitch Rapp series? He's this fantastic operative. But for some reason, he gets out of the Navy after commanding SEAL Team Six and never makes admiral. And so that wasn't maybe doesn't come across super big in the book.

[00:04:53] But that was part of what I was thinking is, is maybe at this point in this career, he's figured out he's not going to make admiral. What does that make him think about? What does that make him think about potentially having a final mission to do with SEAL Team Six that might be the biggest one of his entire career? And so that was kind of what was in my head as I was setting that up for Double Tap.

[00:05:17] I love that because I feel like when we're hearing about Scott with some Michael O'Rourke discussions later on in the series, I remember there's like a look Mitch and Mitch and Scott give each other. They kind of have this understanding of each other without really having known each other. They understand the sacrifices, you know, they've made. Which is really interesting, too, because when you see I'm rereading. I actually started back at the beginning with Kyle's books just to read them and shout out to Kyle.

[00:05:47] Like I'm reading The Survivor now and having read nothing but Mitch's books for probably a lot. Or excuse me, Vince's books for like the last two or three years. And I had to keep reminding myself that Kyle was the run that wrote The Survivor and not Vince, even though I'd been reading Vince and reading it. But the way that Kyle, if you fast forward to Red War and look at Scott Coleman and kind of his interactions with Anna,

[00:06:14] Mitch's surrogate daughter, he is light years. He's kind of a light to Mitch's dark now by the time that Kyle gets done with him. And so it's really interesting to think, again, where he started and then kind of his journey. Because he could have much, he could have, you know, as you say that I keep thinking kind of like an Anakin Skywalker or something like that. That could have been the track for Scott Coleman. And it wasn't.

[00:06:42] And I think that was somewhat to Vince's credit, but probably more to Kyle's is how he shaped Scott Coleman over the course of his nine books. And in the Scott Coleman and Red War, you believe, you believe like, hey, this guy did some crazy stuff back with term limits. But he's still, I still think he's the guy that Anna has wrapped around her little finger and gets to do all the stuff that Mitch won't let her do.

[00:07:11] So that, again, I think is probably a testament to really good writing, both on Vince's part, certainly, but maybe even more so on Kyle's. I think for sure. And also finding family in the Orion team and finding the love and trust of someone like a Kennedy above you, a Hurley, you know, having your back all these years. Yeah. Yeah, I think watching Scott's arc across the whole series and now across three authors, once you start writing about him, that's just a really incredible thing to see. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:40] It was super fun, like I said, to think. We see, especially in Vince's later books and then certainly Kyle's as well, you see, you know, again, for lack of a better term, a fully formed Mitch Rapp. And even in American Assassin and Killshot, even though he's 20 years old, he's way better than he should be. And he never really, to my mind, he never really feels out of his element.

[00:08:09] You know, there are things that he needs to learn and things that he needs to get better at. But that guy is, from the time that he was 20, whatever, 22, 23 years old, whatever it was that he joined the Orion team, was doing what he was meant to do. Scott Coleman took a very different arc. And so I thought, again, it would be fun to show him in that part that we hear about all the time,

[00:08:35] but never get to see where he is in his element at the very pinnacle of his career as a SEAL. And he gets to do maybe what is his final mission and what does that look like for him? And so that was really, really fun to write. It's a great turning point I wouldn't have considered. And Chris, let's say you read the book. I'm surprised hearing, having not finished the book, I'm surprised hearing that there's so much Scott Coleman talk coming from Don and about this book.

[00:09:02] How did it feel reading it, knowing Scott Coleman's coming, without giving too much away? I had no idea that he was coming until, like I said, until I flipped to that channel. It was like, oh, Scott Coleman, just like, oh, I'm just going to throw this out there. Casually. And I go, wait a minute. Because there's a few characters, I won't talk about them now,

[00:09:26] but the way you weaved them in, so not just Scott, but then some of the other characters that you weaved in that we know and we love. And a couple other ambassadors are on our ThrillerPod chat. And they're like, did you just read, tell me when you get to chapter 52. Tell me when you get to whatever. And we're just like, blah, blah, blah. So it was really cool.

[00:09:52] And the other part of it, so I have always had an amazement, just an amazement for, this sounds kind of crazy, Blackhawks. Like I love the Blackhawk helicopters. I love just hearing about, and so when they're writing in it, when Hurley, okay, I shouldn't talk about that part of it yet. But it's just cool how that is incorporated.

[00:10:22] And because, of course, you were an Apache pilot, you know how to write it so that it sounds real, but it's not too technical. And it was just fantastic. I loved that part. I love, love, love that part of it, bringing that in. And that was really fun, too. Hopefully this doesn't, we don't stray into the spoiler part, but I knew, so Stan Hurley's in the book, Scott Coleman's in the book, and they meet in the book.

[00:10:49] And it was, it's always really fun when you get to have one of your favorite characters get seen through the eyes of another favorite character, right? And so I figured out a way to do that where, you know, Scott Coleman is not exactly too happy to see Stan Hurley when he shows up, which is probably the effect that Stan Hurley has most of the time on people. But I was thinking, like, what would Scott, this 06 in the Navy,

[00:11:19] SEAL, SEAL, the CO of SEAL Team 6, what would he think if he saw this guy named Stan Hurley for the first time? And so that was pretty fun. I think you actually, like, screenshotted me and texted me when you got the Scott Coleman thing, I believe, Chris. I was like, I put that on. I put just the chapter number and I put it out there on the Twitter. And I was like... Every time you guys in the group chat are teasing,

[00:11:49] oh, wait till this chapter. Guys, mark this chapter down. I'm just like, what? I need to get to this chapter. Yeah, just haven't found the time. So I said I'd wear the scarlet letter. I admit, I didn't read the book. But by publication day, I'll have it done. So that's my next benchmark. Bring it in back up. Yeah, I'd call the cavalry here. But so another character we haven't mentioned. And again, you two would know if she comes up again. But Denied Access, you got to tell the Greta story.

[00:12:17] Can we assume we kind of put a bow on it or the line to Doc Lewis? You know, we broke up. And the dream sequence, I call it, in Denied Access where Mitch says, I'd be living someone else's dream if I were to string you along and pretend I can have a family, pretend I can have a relationship. Is that Mitch done with relationships for the time being until he meets Anna? Yeah, I think you should never say never

[00:12:44] and might get the answer to that question in this book as well. So you got to keep reading. You got to actually do your homework and finish the book this time. Do the work. Well, someone who's been doing the work is Irene Kennedy because she might have been the standout character of the last one. And so I just don't know how you top some of the things you did with Irene last book.

[00:13:09] I'm thinking of a particular scene on the streets of Moscow where, you know, she's cornered in that car and she really almost one ups her adversary there in that mental gymnastics conversation. So what's in store for Irene? Because I feel like she got the promotion, wanted to stick with Orion. Basically, the world's her oyster. I feel like she's the boss. She's coming to her own. Is this going to be peak Irene soon enough?

[00:13:35] It's funny when I think the first interview Kyle and I ever did together, when they announced the transition was with Ryan Steck, the real book spy, slash the rapologist, slash everything else. And he asked each of us who our favorite characters were after Mitch, of course. And mine has always been Irene.

[00:13:59] And I think Vince obviously wrote her very well, but he also resisted the temptation to make her into a female version of Mitch Rapp, right? She's a very strong character for reasons that are pretty realistic. If you ever get to meet any CIA case officers or things like what she's really good at isn't kicking down doors and shooting bad guys in the face, but she doesn't need to be.

[00:14:28] And in fact, most CIA case officers don't shoot bad guys in the face necessarily. And so with her, like Scott Coleman, what I've always thought about is, you know, when we see her, she is pretty much the heir apparent already, right? You know that she's going to be, when we see her, not in American Assassin or Kill Shot,

[00:14:55] but in the normal, the original timeline of Vince books. And so you realize this is going to happen. You know, she's going to be the director of the CIA. You know that she has all this inner twisted family history where Stanfield is kind of her surrogate father and Hurley is her uncle because her own father was killed and she thought he worked for the State Department and he didn't really work for the State Department.

[00:15:23] But one of those interesting to me, just as fascinating as how does Mitch go from being the 23 year old solo assassin to the guy that we meet in Transfer of Power. How does Irene go from being, you know, a case officer, not just a case officer, because certainly she was in charge of the Orion team. But even then, if you think about it, like what are the odds that somebody has such a off the books job

[00:15:51] and is very in and is working in the basement of CIA headquarters, pretending like she's working the counterterrorism threat. And she goes from that to be in the director of the CIA. That doesn't happen very often. It doesn't happen in very, in fact, the first woman director of the CIA happened just a while back. Gina, I think her last name is Haskell or something like that.

[00:16:17] And one of the things they were making such a big deal about her is that it is not very often that an agent runner actually progresses through the ranks and becomes CIA director. Oftentimes that's a political appointee or, you know, somebody that's from the senior executive service or something like how does that happen? And so with Irene, you do get to see that a little bit more this time.

[00:16:42] Like what, how does she continue to grow to become the person that we meet later in the series too? So I think you get to see some, some fun stuff with Irene too, but I'll defer to Chris and let her tell you if she thinks Irene's there or not. I, Irene's always been one of my favorite characters, if not the, I mean, okay, behind Scott, behind Mitch.

[00:17:06] But no, I love how you have been able to kind of transition because it's very hard to go back in time and just weave in storylines to where, you know, they end up with, with Vince starting Transfer Power, but then beyond.

[00:17:29] So you, you know that they're going here and you're here and you're kind of trying to get in here. And it's just, it feels like kind of a dance. I'm, I don't think I could do it at all. That's why I'm not a writer, but, um, but I love being able to, um, just see how, how things progress.

[00:17:57] And I love seeing how they interact and play. And, and again, I love how you are weaving in history, real history. Again, another real person comes in like at the very beginning. So we, I, I learned about, and then I looked up this, this person that you talk about. That's an Intel agent convicted of, of espionage.

[00:18:23] And that's something that's fascinating to me because it happened. You're in the timeline. We know kind of what year we're in. We know how old Mitch is. Um, yeah. So fantastic. Yeah. You're talking about Jonathan Pollard. And so it's, it's interesting to me. Like if you read one of the things that I always scratch my head around, um, when I read Vince's

[00:18:49] books was his view towards Israelis and I didn't get it at first. And you could see that there was, or at least I shouldn't say, I don't know that that was Vince's personal view, but you could see where he was a little bit more antagonistic towards, um, is the Israelis or the Mossad in particular than perhaps like we're all used to, um, Daniel Silva books where, you know, Gabriel Alon is, is the hero and everything.

[00:19:15] And then I, I finally, and I started thinking, you know, what, when did, you know, Vince was about, I guess about eight years older than me. And so what event shaped him as he was becoming a writer? And I was thinking about the Jonathan Pollard. And I was like, I wonder if it was that because it was in Jonathan Pollard was an American who'd been recruited by the Mossad who was, or excuse me, not the Mossad.

[00:19:40] I think it was actually, um, the Israeli air force intelligence or something like that to, um, spy on behalf of the nation of Israel. And it was a huge blunder cause it blew up in their face and poisoned American and U S relationships. And then as I was researching for this book, I actually found where Vince wrote about that and he outlined the Pollard thing exactly right.

[00:20:03] And so I thought, I bet that that is what influenced him and why he had the, um, the view that he did towards Israeli or to towards Israeli intelligence. And it was maybe a more realistic view, right? There's that famous, um, truism or saying, whatever that says there are no allies. There are just, um, people with shared interests, right? And the nation of Israel is going to do what it thinks is best for the nation of Israel.

[00:20:32] And we're going to do what we think is best for our nation. And hopefully most of the time those things align, but sometimes they're not going to align. And so, you know, one of the things that you see in this book, that's also, uh, uh, a historical fact for people, uh, my age is what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, right? We went into Iraq thinking that he had them and we needed to secure them and we never found them.

[00:21:01] And so there's some really interesting theories that, um, I ran across as I was researching in and some of those theories were voiced, um, by people who were either Israeli politicians or high ranking, uh, members of either the Mossad or the IDF. And so I got to pull on some of those threads in double tap as well. Oh, that's another angle. I'm glad, really glad Chris, we have you.

[00:21:28] Cause I wouldn't have even thought from the, the dust jacket cover and the, uh, the blurb online about Israelis and Mossad being brought into it all. But that is entirely insightful about how Vince handled it because I'm thinking of the character, Ben Friedman, how he took us so far into the gray zone of Israel and America's relationship and working intelligence sharing relationship. I mean, he kneecapped the freaking dude in the middle of the situation room.

[00:21:55] Like things are not always rosy and happy and we're best of allies. Like there's some shadiness there and self-interest, self-interested shadiness. Same with the Saudis too. You mentioned going to Saudi in this book. I feel like Vince didn't pull his punches on the Royal family, uh, their influences. Meanwhile, we, we worked together on a lot of ops and Vince's books. We relied on them. They relied on us yet. They were again, I think of another scene in a limo with, with the Mitch cornering, you know, the crown prince himself.

[00:22:23] So there's a lot of that gray zone Vince would go into and yeah. And I'm glad double tap takes us there. Yeah. The, um, and the, the name of the book escapes me, but the, the Vince book where we see Friedman for the first time is actually where he goes through the Pollard affair and Vince actually talks about it in there. And, uh, and so, um, that, like I said, I'm sure I, obviously I read that book before, but as I was, um, researching for double tap, I stumbled across that again.

[00:22:52] And I'm like, yes, this is part of what I'm sure influenced, um, Vince's writing and how he portrayed Israelis in the Mossad in general. Now that threw me for a loop with the fact that Israel's brought in. So I'm wondering, I got to read to see how that happens, but I'm also wondering about the Pakistani scientists. Cause that plays a big role in the, in the dust jacket, uh, blurb and also in, on the streets of Italy and Verona. I know Mitch speaks Italian. I'm wondering, is, is there any reason why we're in Verona to, to snatch this guy? It seems.

[00:23:22] Yeah. So that, that, that was another, I feel like the, the Mitch universe is, as I get to work in it is, is full of, um, of, of, you know, serendipity or something. So when I got back from Afghanistan, I was stationed in Germany and, uh, we decided we were going to go on R and R and drive through from Germany down to Austria, through Italy and take a cruise out of Venice.

[00:23:49] And so, um, we stopped in Verona and I only had two kids at the time. One of them was a baby. Like I was the tourist with the little baby carrier on the front of my chest. And our first day in Verona, I was standing in the street with the big old tourist map. This was in the days where GPS wasn't really a thing or it was in its infancy. In fact, you had to, you had these little three and a half inch discs and you had to load maps on that and put it in your GPS.

[00:24:15] And it wasn't big enough usually to, to go the entire distance. And so I have this map and I'm standing there in this, you know, stereotypically smartly dressed Italian woman in heels walks up to me and she says, um, excuse me, do you need any help? And I said, uh, actually I'm trying to find the Coliseum. And she's like, it's two blocks that way. You just walk down and you'll see it there. Is there anything else I can do for you? And I said, no, thank you. And she said, well, welcome to my city.

[00:24:44] And then turned around and walked away. And I thought, you imagine if we were standing in Manhattan and I couldn't find something and I would say, you know, everybody just, and so I had this idea, you know, every time I go to, you know, some of the fun part or one of the huge fun parts about Mitch Rapp books is you get to see exotic places and you get to visit countries that maybe the average person hasn't been able to. And I thought, I want to set this book or at least part of it in Verona.

[00:25:12] And then as I started looking at it, I realized, you know, in one of the books says that, uh, Italy is actually one of Mitch's favorite cities and talks about how much, um, you know, whether he speaks a little Italian and, uh, and so every, as I was looking at it, there were more and more reasons to set it in Italy. And obviously, um, that, that same book that has been Friedman about it, we get to meet somebody who spends a lot of time in Italy.

[00:25:41] And so I just felt like as I was going down this road, I'm like, yes, there's a reason why it should be in Verona and, and it's part of the Mitch Rapp universe. And so that's kind of how that happened. There, there is another Italian character, very central to Mitch's dating life. Shall we say? Yeah. Interesting. No, I'm, I don't want to spoil anything. We're going to get to spoiler soon. Is that another character that we can expect to maybe? I mean, I cannot confirm or deny.

[00:26:10] I don't know. I don't know. You don't know who I'm talking about. Is there a character that's Italian that's in one? I don't even know. Interesting. Interesting. With a very storied past thinking of her origin story of, I'm wondering what now I'm trying to think of like the timeline of like what, what she was going through in her early life. Just don't know. Just don't know. It's so good, Mike. What in the world? If only you'd done your homework before this interview. I know. We have not been to Italy yet and we're planning to go next year.

[00:26:40] And so reading about Verona and like, we plan to go to Venice and all of that stuff. And so that too was, was fascinating to me. And I haven't been, I haven't been to, you know, any, any Middle Eastern. I wasn't, my husband was deployed. Yeah. So he traveled the world, shall we say, and saw some of those places, some of those other garden spots.

[00:27:10] Right. That's what we read these books for though. They take us there. They take us through our imagination to all these spots. And so that's really fun. And so I did love seeing Mitch and then like Killshot and denied access. He was in, wasn't it, wasn't it Austria and of course Germany. And so. Yeah. So we have. And when you go to Italy, you will have an amazing time.

[00:27:39] Chris, just do not make the American mistake that I did and try and order a cappuccino with dinner. Like not after 11 AM. He was disgusted. He was so, he just looked at me and then he walked back to the bar and I could see him talk to the other waiters and he's like, cappuccino. Can't do it. Bruto. Yeah. Don't cut the pasta with a knife. Definitely don't cut the pasta with a knife. Yeah. Yeah. It's another good one. Well, you'll love it. Yeah.

[00:28:10] Also, I don't expect a little nice, you know, the lady in Verona when you're in Rome, Milan or any of the other big cities, because it's nice to hear that, that someone had that, that hospitality towards you there. So I was in Rome and it was certainly the Romans are not, not that nice. They just want to get away from you. More in common with the New Yorkers we were bashing before then, huh? The Romans and the New Yorkers have, yeah.

[00:28:37] They're, they're a kind, they're, they're brethren for sure. For sure. Well, Don, this has been a lot of fun. Chris, thank you for filling in the gaps and folks, we're going to fill in a lot more of the gaps in our spoiler section. So after publication date, not before publication date, we will save it in the tank. We will have a spoiler discussion here with Don for you. So pick up the book, pre-order your copy now. And sometime within a week or so after publication, we'll post the spoiler episode so that you guys can fill in the gaps.