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

When Miami Massacre was first published in 1970, it is the waning
days of the Age of Aquarius and men are returning from Vietnam,
finding that there are other wars to fight just as tough. Bolan, earlier
in the series ("War Against The Mafia"), returns home to Los Angeles
to find the Mafia has ruined his family, driven them to despair, suicide,
and more. Known as " the Executioner," Bolan declares war on all the
tough guys the Mafia can muster. Thus, begins one of the great Men's
Adventure show more series of the seventies. Something like a Dirty Harry movie
or a later hero The Rock taking on a whole crew of bad guys by his
lonesome in Walking Tall, Mack Bolan is the one-man take-no-
prisoners rescue-damsels-in-distress guy you all want to be.
Action is the name of the game in a Mack Bolan story, not
philosophical niceties. Bolan takes the war to the Mafia bosses in
Phoenix and Miami, attacking them wherever he can find them. On the
way, he enlists the help of Cuban rebels and a Valkyrie warrior,
Margarita.
If you are looking for intense action from start to finish, you'll never go
wrong with any of the books in this series and certainly not this one. 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 by express permission of this reviewer Title: Cleveland Pipeline Series: The Executioner Author: Don Pendleton Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Thriller Pages: 110 Synopsis: Mack sniffs out a Mafia Man who might be show more going big, only to discover the guy is a two bit masher. So the real mystery is who is behind the Don and what are their nefarious plans? And we're introduced to some Peace and Love chick who Bolan seems to fall in love with. My Thoughts: First,not a huge fan of these new ebook covers. They're lifeless and have NONE of the pulpy zip and zang of the 70's and 80's releases. Oh well, at least there are some legit ebook releases now. I am glad for that. Bolan is beginning to realize that corrupt politicians and power mongers are just as bad, and maybe more prevalent, than the Mafia. With his code of honor, that puts them out of his range for the most part. So far he has always allowed Brognola [his friend inside Washington] to take down the Legitimate Targets from within the Legal System. In this book, we see him take out a non-Mafia target. It felt like a line had been crossed. It also felt like the girl in this book might be more than just the one book bimbo. We'll see if she comes back. If she does, I know she'll die at some point. Mack doesn't get to be happy. " show less

Mafia causes his father to kill most of his family, so sniper returned from Vietnam seeks revenge against the Mafia. I have seen these books for years, but would have only read it if I got it free--which I did. It is definitely one of those guilty pleasures. Perhaps not quite as guilty as Dr. Vigilante, but this book isn't written as well as that one, so it lacks reality. Not that it is badly written; it is just strange--part straightforward third person narrative, part excerpts from the show more Executioner's diary, which he seems to write in even while on the job, and a few newspaper or TV accounts. There is a lot of unbelievability here. The diary, for one thing, where he even mentions the name of his girlfriend, which no sane person would want the police, or worse, the Mafia, to find out. Also his narrow escapes, even when a whole army knows where he is going to show up. And, of course, he is irresistible to all women. But as I said, it is a guilty pleasure, and you'll find it compelling. Other parts of the book, which was written during the Vietnam War, are quite atmospheric, including the attitudes and scenes the Executioner encounters on his mission.

The violence, while there is lots of it, is not really bloodcurdling. The author doesn't describe the scenes in excruciating violent detail or put us inside the heads of folks about to die. So in that regard, it is actually pretty tame. The eBook also includes the first part of Book 2 in the series, where apparently the executioner is going to recruit a while team of his ex-pals from Vietnam to help. So maybe the violence will grow. show less