Don Pendleton (1927–1995)

This is the most ludicrous, overpadded Bolan adventure I have ever read. It would have made a decent 144-160 page book in any men's adventure series, but it appears editorial mandate pushed it to near 350 pages.
The Big Bad Villain (hereafter BBV) is a generic mad dictator in a fictional Middle East country, He has managed to gain a huge stock of missiles by cheating the export laws of various nations to get all the parts he needed, except for some control board MacGuffins. A technogenius show more has the boards and is attempting to get them to the dictator so the missiles can be launched. Bolan is assigned to stop the genius with the aid of a female Israeli agent and every intelligence service in Europe.
In order to fill 350 pages, Bolan catches up with the genius and kills every evil henchman helping him, while missing the actual target...repeatedly. The story is nothing but a series of set pieces where the intelligence service of country X announces they've found where the genius is hiding, Bolan and company go to the hideout and kill everybody there while missing the main objective.
At one point, stretching coincidence until it breaks, they decide to catch him in a trap. The Israeli agent maintains the cover of being one of the world's great supermodels. It turns out that, of all the supermodels out there, she is the one the genius has a thing for. During one of the shootouts, the genius recognizes her and Bolan figures out that he recognizes her. So a publicity appearance is setup because even though she's tried to kill him several times, they figure the genius will show up to meet her. Which he does, but once again gets away while Bolan kills all the guards waiting outside for him.
The BBV decides to assign the world's-greatest-mercenary/assassin-who-isn't-Mack-Bolan to help the technogeek setting up a confrontation between the two great killing machines, which doesn't happen.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Long story short, Bolan fails in his mission. The genius makes it to the BBV and installs the few MacGuffins he didn't lose into the missiles. But suspecting that the BBV is going to cheat him out of his payment, he rigs the boards to send the missiles straight up and back down onto their launch sites. Bolan and the supermodel agent make it to the Mideast but watch helplessly as the missiles launch.
All in all, this book is just a waste of reading time. show less

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Terrorist Dispatch
Series: The Executioner #448
Author: Don Pendleton alias
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 196
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A terrorist group makes an attack at show more a memorial in Washington, DC and no one is sure if it was Russian terrorists, Ukrainian terrorists or somebody pretending to be the other. Mack Bolan doesn't care. With information from the Stony Man intelligence farm, he goes after the local russian and ukrainian mobsters and then heads to the Ukraine to do the same to both their bosses.

Hitting both sides equally, Bolan pits them against each other, thus allowing them to wipe each other. Scratch two bad guys form the list of the world's badguys.

My Thoughts:

I read the original 30 some Executioner books by the real Don Pendleton a couple of years ago. Vigilante Men's Action/Adventure perfectly sums up these books. Mack Bolan was a driven man, capable, rational and unafraid of blood and violence against those who deserved it. Planning, action and guts were the characteristics of his moves.

This book, written by a ghost writer mentioned in the end credits, is produced by Gold Eagle, a division of Harlequin. What bodice ripping romance books are for women, Mack Bolan books are for men. Sadly, the character of Mack Bolan as depicted originally isn't the same guy portrayed here. Some of the same “words” are used, but the man portrayed in this book uses the word “whatever” a lot. The Executioner doesn't use the word “whatever”, that implies a lack of caring about planning and intel gathering. Considering he uses it at least three times in this book, it makes Mack Bolan feel very caricature'ish here.

I am glad that I read this but it has put to rest my curiosity about how the franchise has proceeded. Simply put, it has been simplified even more, to the point that I don't want to read more. Not recommended unless you need a serious brain break for a day or two.

★★★☆☆ show less

I do feel like there was some potential here, even though it was evident 1/4 of the way through who was responsible for the murders.

Two of the primary characters were extremely annoying with their seemingly throwaway marriage. Well, it was treated that way by one of them and sometimes both. Constant talk (inner dialogue and flirting) about cheating... just kind of added a sad element rather than making the story more involved.

Maybe if there was no potential cheating element and just show more focused on the couple working on their marriage and the reason they were having issues. (Not sure if it's just me, but if your eyes and your mind start straying that much- you clearly are not in love with your spouse and there isn't much there without love and loyalty.) Or- leave the couple element out all together.

Overall, definite potential but unnecessary personal drama got in the way of what I felt was the 'real' story. I'd rate it more of a 2.5 story-wise, but the narration is decent.

I was provided with a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an unbiased review. show less

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: The Iranian Hit Series: The Executioner Author: Stephen Mertz & Don Pendleton Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: show more Action/Adventure Pages: 182 Format: digital scan Synopsis: Mack must guard an Iranian scumbag, merely because he is bait so Bolan can wipe out a particular hit group of Iranians that dare operate in the United States. My Thoughts: Bolan starts to deal with politics in his war. It isn't pretty and it makes him just another cog in a machine. Instead of being a lone warrior vigilante with a cold eye and even colder steel, he just becomes a tool of the government. He used to fight for the common man against an enemy who directly oppressed them. Now it is scaled up and it is for people in general. It is tough to articulate but it really comes across in this book. One more book I've got on my kindle then I'm done with this. I'll probably track down an Executioner book released in '16 just to see how it compares, but it can't be impossible for me to be any more apathetic about it then I have been about these post-Mafia books. " show less