Assault on Rome

A decent installment, but not much else. Actually, it makes a better tourist guide than a novel, what with the luscious detail given to Rome and its landmarks. The story here is really thin. Thinner than the pages it's printed on. There's more chaff than wheat here: previous, shorter installments like #46: Bloodsport and #55: Paradine's Gauntlet, with their huge margins and text, manage to carry significantly more substance in one paragraph than a typical page of Assault on Rome. We get lots of scenery porn here, which is nice and immersive, but the book tends to get lost in it. While the scenery is interesting enough, the pages wasted on describing each character's thoughts and feelings isn't, and for whatever reason it just. Keeps. Going. The story is incredibly basic - Bolan infiltrates a terrorist group and destroys them from the inside - but something so simple becomes a chore to read. But when you aren't skipping these long, aimless passages, other problems appear. Bolan is extremely out of character and lets our big bad, Frenzi, blow up a fountain without doing anything to stop him. I get that he has to maintain the part as a mercenary, but this is bullshit. If Bolan had chosen that moment to reveal his ruse, then there's no doubt in my mind the story would've gone into a much more exciting direction. Maybe some cat-and-mouse stuff with bombs and Frenzi's goons. On the plus side, the action scenes are equally long as the pointless inner monologues that bog the story down and provide a sense of balance in that regard. The character's are pretty well developed, especially Claudia Perrini, and I actually liked Frenzi in all his homicidal glory. It's really unfortunate that Claudia's father Luciano, a police chief, doesn't get in on the action at all despite the book hyping it up. Again, if Bolan had stopped LARPing as and evil one-man A-Team during the fountain scene, he and Luciano could've joined forces and obliterated the terrorists together. That would've been cool as hell. Not recommended reading, but not bad either.

This is a pretty ordinary read in the series folks be warned. Whilst the plot was OK as has been reviewed previously the way he infiltrates the Terrorist group is umm ordinary at best. The constant padding with the thoughts of the characters has also been mentioned and indeed becomes very tedious as you make your way through the title. I am surprised that this hasn't been mentioned by any of the previous reviewers but the main villain in this is a Terrorist group leader. Around half way or two thirds of the way through the title the author forgets who he is writing about and our Terrorist Group leader suddenly becomes not only a member of the Mafia but is now a Don. Huh? He is the constantly referred to as Don Carlo throughout the rest of the title until the last couple of pages. As has been mentioned the Big Guy is totally out of character when he stands by and lets Frenzi detonate the explosives under the fountain resulting in massive casualties of the innocent. I actually enjoyed the ending and added a couple of stars the transformation of Claudia Perrini when she finally wakes up to what is going on was good as was her saving of the Big Guy when he is about to be turned into turkey meat. Can't recommend this for your reading just for the diehards I reckon.

Assault on Rome, or Asleep in Rome? Mike Newton wrote some real gems around this period, including The Trial and Eternal Triangle. Unfortunately this entry does not reach anywhere near the same standards. Bolan is in Rome to rescue a hostage from the reborn Red Justice Column. The RJC featured in Tuscany Terror, but other than the name, the new group has no relation to the old group whatsoever. Bolan bungles the rescue and afterwards swears to have revenge and destroy the RJC. Tuscany Terror is one of the shortest Bolan stories published, and this story is just as short. The padding that makes up the gist of this novel is just unbelivable. We are treated to whole chapters on what indivdual characters are thinking, which isn't so bad until you come across exactly the same thing a few chapters later, and a few chapters after that. I was left with the distinct feeling that pages had been photocopied before being submitted because many of the 'thoughts' were identical. I was skipping whole pages at one point, something that I do not like to do. Bolan infiltrates the RJC by walking into the first bar that he comes across and bribing the barman with a 1,000 lira note. Please! That was about 25 US cents in those days. What a bribe! Bolan is promptly approached by a memeber of the RJC, promptly gets into a fight with the police to prove that he is a 'bad guy' and lo and behold he's in. Bolan meets up with the villain, Carlo Frenzi, and spends the rest of the book worrying about killing Frenzi because he might not learn the whereabouts of all the bombs (that is the plot by the way. Bad guy has planted bombs around Rome and is blackmailing the authorities) and somebody else may pickup where Frenzi left off. These fears are completely groundless as we see that the henchmen are all idiots, they are regularly executed by Frenzi on a whim, and Frenzi himself isn't all that smart anyway. This worrying really comes to a head when Bolan watches Frenzi detonate a bomb in the middle of Rome that kills hundreds of tourists, while the Executioner does nothing to stop it. Absolutely nothing. Because he doesn't yet know where the other bombs are......until a few pages later he walks calmly into the radio room, sees a map with all the locations and writes the info down. Gads! Both Mike Newton and Mack Bolan really had a day off on this one. Newton seemed bored with the whole story, forcing the words out, and his characterisation of Bolan really suffered.

This was a very fun, entertaining read from Newton. I was pleased that it was good because Newton writes so many books, I sometimes worry if some are going to be below average, but this book was well above average. Keep it up Mr. Newton!!!

A decent book, but one I would not read over again.

A decent entry but not much more.

JUST OK.

Enjoyable.