Appointment in Baghdad

SuperBolan: Appointment in Baghdad is mostly good with all of its ups and downs with a good story-arc and thrilling action too pulling directly from the then-recent headlines of the mid to late 2000s

Nicely done novel that has Bolan, Encizo and James tracking a mysterious warlord and his minions all across the globe. Action was plentiful, along with a very graphic and realistic suicide bombing scene, with Bolan and co. experiencing the aftermath. Tense stuff. The battle at the compound at the end was explosive and fast-paced, but when Bolan confronts the Scimitar, it sort of fell flat. But, otherwise, a worthy effort.

Bolan grows a beard! Such a shame that the front cover depicts Bolan after he has had a bikini wax on his mug! The first part of this book was pretty standard, we have Bolan together with Enzico and James tracking a terrorist network around the world, shooting everything up then following the breaadcrumbs to the next location and so on. Sometimes it was unclear as to the links or how the villain / goons were involved. In fact I found the story to be so standard that I actually left my copy to go and read two other books in between, something that i almost never do. But then we move on to Baghdad at that is where the story really starts to kick in. I got the sense that the other had first hand or mabybe close second hand knowledge of the city because it is so well written. Then we get to the suicide bombers attack on the road block and the subsequent action that follows. Never in all my years of reading Bolan have I come across an action scene that is so well written that I actually felt that I was there. Never have I felt the horror of an attack so closely. We move away from the "Die-Hard" style of action to something that more resembles "The Hurt Locker" or "Generation Kill". Wow. But then we leave Iraq and move to Syria (and current events have deated the book somewhat) and we move back to the normal flow of action which seemed somewhat of a let down after the horror of Baghdad. The biggest annoyance that I have with the novel is what happens to James and Enzico? Both are perforated like tea-bags, both are knocking at deaths door - and whilst we know that they cannot die because they have a G.E. contract - it would have been nice to know how they are doing at the end of the novel. The book is worth its cover price for the Baghdad sequence, so if you can get hold of a copy then do so.

First time author in this series and a pretty good effort I reckon. I found myself enjoying the writing style after the first few chapters and the action scenes came across as refreshing, interesting and exciting. The overall plot I found a little hard to follow what was actually going on at times but will admit it all tied together at the end but definitely this title is one where you need a pad and pencil next to you to keep track of the characters introduced as there are quite a lot of them. Some of the action scenes are fantastic reading especially the ending sections. The author introduces certain things and gives off information on them which either shows a massive knowledge of what he is talking about or extensive research on same. Overall an enjoyable read here which came close to an eight for me but a few slow passages coupled with the absence of a epilogue to let us know how Calvin and Rafe are doing would have been nice (which may have been in fact edited out). I enjoyed it and would suggest you could do far worse in this series than this effort.

The last of the 350-page titles of this series, and literally the longest title of the franchise, “Appointment in Baghdad” is entirely in Bolan’s (or his allies) point of view as he tracks down a mysterious terror mastermind known as Scimitar. The mood and atmosphere of modern day Iraq is rendered very well, in a gripping, tense way. The plot and characterization is above average, but not a lot distinguishes from the rest of the pack. An average recommendation.

I have just started reading the Mack Bolan and Executioner series, and so far this was has been the least impressive, but it was still pretty good. The overall plot was above decent but not great. Same for the action sequences. There were some parts of the book throughout the beginning and middle where I felt like I was forceing myself to read, but he ending of the book was a page-turner.