Prequel
 

Should I read the prequel first?

American Assassin is where Mitch Rapp starts his career. It sounds like Kill Shoot is the second. These are both prequels to the entire Mitch Rapp series that I chronolized in an earlier post in this thread.

Throughout the series Flynn does refer back at times to characters in an earlier novel. After reading a couple out of sequence, I went back and started from the beginning. It helped make more sense.

Thx zcaveman, I'm still ot sure if I should read the prequels 1st?
Maybe it's obvious but just checking.

You do not need to read the prequels first but you can. They start from the beginning and answer how Mitch Rapp came to be in more detail.

I would read them first. As OpusX1 said they tell you how Rapp came to be. Also some of the characters in Assassin show up later in the regular series.