Lethal Compound

Mack Bolan and the Dirty Dozen (or so). Started off well with Gary Manning helping Mack stop the assassination of a billionaire. Then Bolan is off with the billionaire and bunch of mercs on a treasure hunt. Probably too many characters to cover in such a short book, but the ambush/car chase was cool, then they're up in the mountains, discovering Alexander the Great's lost Citadel. Bolan and Co. trying to take down a Hind gunship was very tense, but then towards the end, things got more muddled. The finale of trying to hold off the Chinese assault, plus get away from a nuke blast ended this decent book.

First impression on opening this title was bloody hell look at the size of the left and right margins massive and I'm thinking never mind this author always delivers the goods but unfortunately not here. The start featuring Manning outside of the billionaires forest retreat is excellent and I am thinking yep here we go this is going to be good but... It fell away dramatically after the start with the plot of the expedition to locate the lost site of Alexander The Great whilst interesting at first add in many characters who have little to do with the storyline but being included as cannon fodder and coupled with having to try and recall who is actually who (perhaps a pen and paper next to you as they are introduced would be advisable) is tedious. The Russians who are hunting the party didn't make much sense well why bother attacking the party to stop them locating the said location where the Russians have been up to no good when you intend to nuke the site anyway to cover up what you have been doing there. As has been mentioned everyone is blown away except the Big Guy and the chick and how convenient for the Farm to manage to insert a drone to assist the Big Guy at just the right time. Did nothing for me this one the author has done MANY titles vastly superior than this one. One for the addicts who are reading the series in order I reckon for the rest of you look elsewhere especially other titles from this author.

**contains spoilers** The problem with these shorter Executioner novels is quite simple; there is no space for story or character development. What we have is a story that could have developed into a James Rollins-esque archeological adventure, but was wasted inbetween the prerequistite firefights and some nonsense about a Russian chemical weapons base that was built on top of a lost mountain based castle of Alexander the Great. The novella certainly started off well enough, the eccentric billionaire hiring mercenaries to protect him, the opening hit on the billionaires house, all good stuff. But by the time we get to Azerbeijan the main drive of the plot is lost to shooting, shooting and more pointless shooting. Two of the mercs are predictable traitors, and in the end every one dies except Bolan and the girl. What a waste of an interesting storyline.

This one felt a bit off. I never really understood why the expedition needed to develop the way it did. The billionaire angle was a bit too contrived. The whole Chinese involvement made less sense - did they really need to follow an archaeologist to figure out where that facility was located? Where were the Russian bombers when the Chinese needed to be wiped out? Why would a billionaire travel into the back country without an extraction plan? There were decent characters but they just seemed far too shallow and stereotypical rather than real people. Lethal Compound is not the worst Executioner I have read but it is unlikely to be one that I read a second time.

As expected Mr. Rogers delivers a healthy dose of action here. It's always fun to see Mack work with others from The Farm, in this case Manning. In this favor to Hal Mack becomes part of a "foreign legion" group of mercs to help an eccentric billionaire fulfill his passion in archeology while an unknown force is trying to kill him. The merc group although hand picked by the billionaire reminded me of The Executioner's own Death Squad each a specialist in his own right. This book has a great pace and kept me turning the pages from a moving car shoot-out, taking out helicopters and riding on horses which all contributed for change of pace adventure for the big guy. A highly recommended quick read.

I loved this book enough that I could talk about it all day so I’ll try to give a down and dirty review that someone can actually read in a couple minutes. I feel that with the amount of these books published every year variety and changes in format between books is important to keep the stories and characters fresh. The Indiana Jones-ish plot to this book was a cool change in pace. We’ve seen many titles featuring mercenary crews but I don’t recall any that were nearly as interesting as the dirty dozen or so Bolan leads in the Ural Mountains in this book. Some Bolan books (particularly SuperBolans) suffer from weak supporting characters that drag down and slow down the story. Not the case here, they made the atmosphere more interesting and helped accelerate the plot right along. My favorite was Blair, the ex-3/75 Ranger who is a little intense and likes to jack steel in the gym. 3/75 is my old battalion so I am a little biased but I think Rogers got the personality nailed down pretty good (for better or worse). The research put into this book was also appreciated. At one point Bolan mentions how Russians prefer to use infantry to fix the enemy in place before cleaning them out with air strikes. In the US Army we take the opposite approach of course. Also, Bolan’s in depth knowledge about the VSS rifle/SMG was right on. On that note I love the way Rogers writes Bolan because he comes across as exactly what you would expect the world’s greatest warrior to be. Mature, experienced, and with a depth of knowledge of all things related to intelligence, combat, and foreign cultures. The guy you send in at the 11th hour. As I said up top I could go on much longer here but I hope this gives enough information to convince Bolan readers to go out and pick this title up, its definitely worth your time.