While this one grabbed me with a story taken from the headlines--Mack's after some WMD's that Saddam hid during the Iraq invasion, it ended up being just an average read. The opening gun battle was exciting and Bolan evading Mig's was tense, too. After that it settled down. Bolan's Iranian-American sidekick was a good character. The action scenes were blah, and I wondered how many times Bolan could be in a hostile country and continue to evade the cops in the city for as long as he did. Seemed a bit too far-fetched to me.
Yeah , this one was an ok read, It seemed a little too far fetched, some good action scenes, but yeah that torture scene was a little weird. I did enjoy the cool old cars, but there were a few too many.
Glenn
5/10
September 25, 2006
It has often been said that The Executioner novels no longer sell as well as they used to.
And after reading this hogwash it is understandable as to why the series is sliding. In this day and age people would like to read novels that are technically accurate - Tom Clancy started this trend with The Hunt for Red October - and even if an author doesn't know the ins and outs of a certain subject then the internet and all of its resources is only a few mouse clicks away. Except that Jerry vanCook has a phobia about computers and I shall explain why later on.
But where do I start with this mess? On the plus side there were some good locations used, the story moves from Iran to Croatia to Djibouti, and if Jerry says that this statue is there then I tend to believe him. After all, a Lonely Planet book is easy to get hold of. So that was the plus.
And now for the minuses, and boy are there a lot of them. And I mean a lot. I don't think I will even go into them all, but these are the ones that stick in my mind:-
Weapons: Mack Bolan uses a knife in his day to day work. Jerry van Cook likes knives, as you can find out on his website. But when the author goes on and on and on about a particular knife then it becomes old really fast. The "Baghdad Bullet" is introduced on page 59 and is mentioned on every other page for the entire book. I lost track of the number of times that Bolan sticks it under the throats of police officers, taxi drivers, hotel workers, renegade scientists, sailors etc. Seriously it is used that often. Jerry gave Bolan a real fetish in this novel. I have no wish to buy shares in the manufacturing company, and to use the book as an advert seemed a bit off.
Boring: That sums up the story. It seemed to be a regular Executioner that was padded and padded and padded. The 'Renegade'in the book is a scientist called Anton Sobor. Just a regular bad guy who is selling nasty weapons to other bad guys. He has no special skills. And yet he gets away from Bolan not once, not twice but three times. And each time Bolan goes after him following flimsy clues, travelling around Iran with near impunity, only to miss the guy again. And I do mean miss with a Desert Eagle. The repartition was dull.
Allies: I was reminded reading this book of computer games where you as a character have to recruit npc's to join you in a quest to do whatever. You would pick these npc's up in bars and taverns and they were always easy to find. And so it was here. Bolan recruits a NYPD cop who happens to be Iranian who happens to be on vacation in his old home village which happens to be on Bolan's travel and Bolan meets him after he happens upon his grandfather and....yawn. Needless to say this NYPD cop joins Bolan's quest, is a mind reader because he knows exactly what Bolan is thinking, and then ends up getting killed because the author has painted himself into a hole where only the introduction of another character will help the story along. So one dies and Bolan picks up another ally one page later. Good grief! And not forgetting that Bolan also picked up a Russian merc as an ally when extra firepower was needed, but he got killed off the moment that he was no longer needed. Killing off allies when they are no longer needed is really lazy story telling, and bugs me no end.
Locations: So I liked the locations that Jerry used. But the people that he painted on to these locations were terrible. All Iranians are corrupt, although Bolan 'suspects' that there might be one or two good ones. All Iranians drive classic American automobiles with engines that are as loved as a baby and there is almost no difference between a terrorist and an Iranian police officer. The Croatians are portrayed as complete idiots, they all know exactly the same phrase in English and that is all they know. But otherwise they are grinning buffoons. And I don't think I'll bother with telling you how Jerry treats the Djiboutians.
Party Politics: The afore mentioned Tom Clancy is a great one for forcing his version of politics down the readers throat and Jerry does his best here as well. I gathered that Jerry votes Republican because of several things. And not only because Americans are the only geniuses and the rest of the world is populated by idiots as in this book. It seems that the current president "the cowboy from Texas" really means what he says and the entire world is trembling in their boots whenever he appears on tv and the previous president was oh so weak and lame. I mean, please, do you really think that countries like Syria and Iran and others are really so worried about an American invasion after the mess that is Iraq. And the whole book's premise is based on that concept. And then of course there was the incident when Anton Sobor mentions that Iraq was only invaded for the oil and not for 'freedom', only to be threatened with violence by the NYPD cop. Why? Does another view of the 'truth' hurt?
Djibouti: Issa's and Afars hate each other and have been fighting since the year dot. True. But I had to laugh when Chief Asab is worried that his country will be next on America's invasion list. Um, Jerry, there are already 5,000 US Marines based in Djibouti and they have been there since 2001. Yet no mention is made of the massive military base which is situated right next to the airport which figured so prominently in your story. But that is just me nitpicking. Sorry.
Computers: Ah, the best for last. "I only know that Satan lives inside them" Page 327. I had a feeling that Jerry was expressing his on views on computers. Because by the time I had read page 330 I really wanted to drop kick the book out the window. The only thing stopping me was the fact that I paid for the book and the cover was still so nice and shiny. So let me explain my peev here. Bolan comes across the villains computer which is an old Compaq from 1996 (ah, a Pentium 75 MHz, I know them well). The language is in Arabic, which Bolan has to have translated. So far so good. Then Bolan comes across a file that is password protected. Since Bolan has two left hands when it comes to computer he phones his old friend Bear. And now for the amazing parts. The second goof is that Bear learns of the password, and tells Bolan it, the password is in ENGLISH, yet if Bolan was reading ARABIC then the KEYBOARD would be set to ARABIC as well, so how did BEAR and BOLAN manage that? (No mention was made of giving the info to the translating npc who then typed it in). But the primary goof was how the Bear discovered the password. The computer wasn't connected to a modem, so Bear has Bolan tell him the make and model of the pc and then WITHOUT OPENING THE COMPUTER, Bolan reads out the serial number and date of manufacture of the HARD DISK! Apparently Bear then knows enough to figure out the password!!!!! F**king Amazing!! I really want to know how to do that! I wouldn’t need to use little programs like password spy then! Learn passwords from the serial number of the hard drive! It boggles the mind.
Okay, I'll admit it. I really didn't like this book. Really I didn't. Not one that I will ever read again. And remember, if you ever forget your password then just send Jerry the hard drive serial number. He'll know what to do with it.
