Firepower

hmm bit of a dull half Stony Man title here. Lyons, Gadgets, Pol, Jack, Cowboy, Hal and Price all feature and you will be thinking to yourself why? Now more pages for the Stony Man Team means less for the big guy of course and so obviously he plays only a small part in this "Super Bolan" title. That could be okay but unfortunately none of the other mentioned characters play much of a role either bar Price. A private investigator is introduced who happens to be known to Price and many pages go by on this relationship and what happens to him. So why is he there? Of course to have something happen to him which rebounds to where Price catches up with yet more people from her past in a hostage situation. Okay but nothing else seems to be happening? The Indians were well I don't know what the hell they were even there for? The absurd takeover and taking of hostages at the end by them was laughable, what the hell did they think they were going to achieve? I really enjoyed this authors "earlier" Able Team titles but feel he failed in his first Super Bolan title. Not one I could recommend better titles in the series than this.

I found this book to be a dull and confusing mess. There was certainly the potential for a great storyline, but the plot just fizzled and died. Some of the problems have already been pointed out by other reviewers. Alisha Witt had a good introduction, but then she disappeared, only to appear at the end of the novel with a have baked plan and to get shot by Bolan. The Indian tribe really were used as patsies, they were just page filler, and the gunfight at the car yard it seemed that the 'injuns' just popped up only to fall down again like an old John Wayne western. The two main 'villains' weren't all that main. Although most of the novel focuses on them (Bolan really is just added as an afterthought) they are, in the end, nothing more than two bit hoodlums who want to make it to the big time, but seem incapable of pulling it off. At no time did I feel that these two were a credible threat. But my biggest problem is with the Stony Man crew themselves - and the massive co-incidences surrounding them. Brognola (who fades in and out of the story) is called in by an old friend who runs a defense firm. Brognola decides to call in Bolan - who can't handle the two hoodlums on his own - and then calls in Able Team - who contribute very little to the story, and then decides to call in a private detective to assist Bolan and friends, and this pi just happens to be an old friend of Barbara Price, who - for the first time ever - decides to go out into the field and help Brognola, Bolan, Lyons, Blancanales, Schwartz, Grimaldi, Kissenger and pi boyfriend on the ground. Price spends most of her time in a hotel room fretting or in getting captured by red injuns. SHe later happens to bump into two park rangers who also know Price by name, so it seems that Price lived in or grew up in the area, but this is either never mentioned by the author, or it was cut as unneeded background information. Also annoying was the authors ability to forget characters and injuries. The characters who were killed in the sports car in the beginning of the novel are never mentioned again, not even by the two bit hoodlums, and Bolan's injuries - being shot in the ribs at close range and having his leg run over by a motorbike are pretty soon forgotten. To cut a dull story short, this was a chore to get through, and I am unable to find anything good to say about Firepower.

I found this book to be entertaining. It is quite different from most Bolan books. The usual formulas from the Pendleton-Newton style is not to be found here, but it was nice to read something heavy on the storyline, like Renauld's AT novels. A lot of time is spent on the perspective of the bad guys, and there are a lot of them in this story. I really liked the villains Ovitz and Tompkins. They were written very well, and were a good portrayal of basic nasty badguys going about their business. There are a lot of interconnected plot threads that had to come together at the end, some of which were not as good as I had hoped, but this book was fun to read about all the villain's scemes along the way. One thing that brings my rating down a little on this novel is that this story seemed to be about everything but Mack Bolan. Too often he was an afterthought, showing up for a page or two, then disappearing again for long stretches. His dialogue wasn't quite accurate either at times. One thing cool about this book is the presence of Able Team. It was nice to see Mack and Carl work together in a few scenes. Barbara Price gets a role in the book also. All in all, a fun read, but not a book all Bolan reader's will like, I think. I look forward to more novels from this writer though.

Bolan gets a tip about a shipment of arms that may be highjacked. Following up on this leads to corruption and muder throughout the defense industry. "Firepower" started of great. Bolan is in trouble with his raid on the highjacked truck. The villain, Alisha Witt, was a fresh face compared to the more traditional bad guys that usually populate the Excutioner's world. Things were looking good. Unfortunately, after a few chapters, Witt disappeared, only to show up again towards the very end. The double and triple crosses that the arms dealers made were senseless and just muddled the book. The Native Americans in the novel seemed to be played as patsies. There is no strong sense of climax with the novel, it just sort of sputters and dies. It's rated fairly high because it was different and had potential. Sadly, the novel did not live up to expectations.

This book sucked. Any book by Ron Renauld sucks. He made April Rose's (or was it Barbara Price) character seem weak and dependent.

A passable entry into the series. It was nice to see Able Team get in on the action. Nothing too spectacular here though.