Like Many Before Him, Vince Flynn Tries to Convince Imus to Read His Book 'American Assassin'

Imus is as inspired by Vince Flynn’s journey from account salesman at Kraft Foods to New York Times Bestselling author as millions of readers are enamored of his thriller novels, the latest of which is American Assassin.

“You inspired a character in my novel: Stan Hurley,” Flynn told Imus. “Everybody really loves him. He makes you want to laugh, he makes you want to cry. If he thinks it, he says it.”

American Assassin is a prequel that follows Flynn’s character Mitch Rapp from his CIA recruitment and training to his first mission in Beirut, his first kill, and his first “big screw you to Washington,” Flynn said, “When they tell him to do something and he does the exact opposite.”

Though Flynn has achieved wild success with his ten previous novels, it took 60 rejection letters from publishers before he decided to publish his first book himself. He credits a lifelong struggle with dyslexia and strong encouragement from his family with keeping him motivated. Now a member of the board at The Groves Academy, a school near his Twin Cities home that caters to kids with learning differences, Flynn consoles despondent parents who are sometimes at the end of their rope. 

“Those little kids who are on Ritalin because they’re all ADD—they’ll be some company’s top sales rep, because they can do the work of six guys,” he tells parents. “It’s tough right now, but you’ve got to hang with it. It’s actually a gift, it just doesn’t seem like it when you’re little.”

Flynn was admittedly nervous about American Assassin’s debut because it has been the most positively reviewed of all his novels to date. “It makes me anxious because you think, if I’m starting to please some of those people, I might have just missed the mark,” he said.

Over the years, Flynn has networked to gain access to some of the highest-level intelligence officers and FBI agents in this country, sources that he said “take me to a point, and then I have to fill in the blanks.” He has filled in those blanks so wonderfully in the past that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once accused him of publishing classified information.

“The couple of times that that’s happened, it’s been a guess,” Flynn said, and owed his dumb luck to dyslexia. “I think it’s that dyslexic gift of being able to look down that road and say, ‘Alright, this is where it’s going.’”

Now considered a terrorism connoisseur, Flynn is often consulted by government authorities for his advice, a twist of fate Imus once chided by saying, “We’ve got to come up with a better plan than the guy from Kraft telling you what to do.”

But the guy from Kraft knows his stuff, and develops characters whose heroism is so admirable because they’re often men and women in uniform. “A lot of reporters who try to write thrillers, why those novels don’t work is because guess who their hero is? A reporter,” he said. “That’s like having your hero be a politician. It’s really hard for the average person to buy into.”

Flynn tried to cajole Imus into actually reading American Assassin by pointing out that he could download it to his iPad at the stroke of midnight tonight. No such luck.

“I can’t stay up that late,” said little baby Imus.

-Julie Kanfer