Mitch Rapp (Don Bentley) Books in Order

Don Bentley’s Mitch Rapp books continue Vince Flynn’s long-running series about the CIA’s most feared counterterrorism operative. Bentley stepped into a world with deep history: Rapp began as a young man recruited after personal tragedy, became an assassin in the secretive Orion program, and eventually turned into the blunt instrument American leaders call when the official options are too slow or too clean.

Bentley’s first Rapp novel, Capture or Kill, is set in 2011. It puts Rapp near two pressure points at once: the hunt for Osama bin Laden and an Iranian weapons threat that could destabilize the Middle East. CIA director Irene Kennedy needs proof before the president will authorize a raid in Pakistan, while another danger builds in the background. The result is a Rapp story about timing, trust, and the thin line between a covert success and a regional war.

The next Don Bentley entries move back into Rapp’s early years.

Denied Access picks up the origin-story thread begun in American Assassin and Kill Shot. The Cold War has ended, the CIA is fighting for its future, and Russian intelligence is still very much in the game. Rapp is a newly minted assassin with a personal problem too: the woman he loves is threatened, and protecting her pulls him into a larger fight over the agency’s survival.

Double Tap continues that younger-Rapp track with his first deep-cover mission. When a Pakistani chemical weapons scientist is kidnapped in Verona, Rapp has to penetrate a jihadi organization before the scientist’s knowledge can be turned into a weapon of mass destruction. It is the kind of assignment that forces him to be more than a shooter. He has to disappear inside the lie and stay there long enough to stop a chain reaction.

The common thread is Rapp under pressure before the legend has fully hardened around him.

Bentley keeps the familiar parts of the series in place: Irene Kennedy’s intelligence instincts, Thomas Stansfield’s shadow over the agency, enemies who understand power, and Rapp’s willingness to do what others cannot. But his entries also lean into formation. They ask how Rapp learned the trade, what love and loyalty cost him, and how the CIA survived moments when its own future was uncertain.

Readers already familiar with Flynn can slot these books into the larger Rapp timeline. New readers can still follow the action, but American Assassin and Kill Shot add useful context before Denied Access and Double Tap. For Don Bentley’s run alone, publication order is the simplest path: Capture or Kill, Denied Access, then Double Tap.