Jungle Law

Hmm, what we have here as one review has already said, is the normal Mike Newton affair. Get a gang together, this time Able Team, get a list of targets and then split up and run around throwing handgrenades at the targets. Girl gets kidnapped so off to the rescue. Nothing original whatsoever and the author has done it so many times before. Dull. The second part was better when the gang get into the rain forest. But otherwise it was been there, seen it, done it so many times before that even Bolan must be bored of it by now.

The opening chapters are pretty good, setting the stage for the novel. Bolan then starts his blitz against death squads in Rio, who have been taking the law into their own hands, often killing innocent civilians along with anyone else they believe oppose what they think ought to be. A plus for this section is the addition of Able Team. I enjoyed seeing these guys in action, and they worked with Bolan for the entire mission. However, at least in this portion of the story, Newton writes the same kind of scenes he has written many times before, capping it off with the woman-hostage-Bolan-rattles-cages till hostage is released sniper scene included. However, unlike Omega Game, where Newton sleepwalked through the whole book with these kind of scenes, he changes gears, and shifts things into a more fresh direction, for the rest of the book. The Stony Man crew then takes to the jungle of Brazil, going after the mastermind of the death squads and the hardmen destroying the native villages in the jungle. The Reese character, who had befriended the natives and helped ally Bolan with them, was a good character added to the story. I also liked the tension between the death squad leader and Nazare, the main villain as their world was falling apart as Newton is good with these kind of scenes. But I did think that the jungle portion of the book was drawn out too much, the action was plenty, but it seemed like the writer was trying to pad the word count in too many places. This is a trait in some of Newton’s books, and it bogged down the pacing of the book too much as usual. Overall, a good story, maybe would have been better as a smaller title, but Jungle Law is not the best, not the worst, just a fair read, with a good showing by Able Team for a special touch.

Okay here we go with Mike Newton's latest masterpiece on my travels through this series and we are hanging out for something/anything ORIGINAL (well at least I am). Off to Brazil this time where the main villian is a super rich tycoon who is currently engaged in the deforestation of the rain forest and is bankrolling the Death Squads who are basically like his own private army. So the Big Guy is accompanied this time by Able Team and off they go. On arrival they quickly meet up with their contact who is a gorgeous woman (Oh No not again please) and are supplied a list of target locations which will result in major losses for the Mafia family sorry I mean the Death Squad hierarchy. The four of them split the list up and off they go to rattle those cages. Now the tycoon and leader of the Death Squads are quite perplexed as to who might be doing these things to them (imagine that) and we have wondrous reading about this over many pages. So what can the Death Squad leader do? He has to get this information of his enemies and of all the millions of people to choose from who could possibly have it? Why the female contact of course so she is promptly abducted and taken hostage. Mack and the gang hear about this and quickly go about a perfect response to this by launching attacks against more targets but always leaving one of the enemy alive to take a message back to his boss (imagine that). I especially like one of the scenes in this section where the Big Guy is in a snipers position in a building some way up where he has a clear view of the Death Squad leader who is currently speaking to two of his lieutenants in an opposing building. He of course has the phone number and gives him a call and politely suggests it would be a good idea to release the hostage, predictably he is told where to go and come into the office anytime but no he replies hang on a sec and promptly uses the sniper rifle to take out both of the lieutenants to get his attention and requests again. I was thankful for the poor telephone at least it wasn't blown away this time. Finally the Leader agrees to release the hostage at his choice of location and time. Mack agrees and the discerning reader may question whether this may be leading to a trap being laid for the good guys but whilst this will occur there is nothing to be concerned about as he has Able Team with him folks this time gee whiz he did it by himself the last 20 - 25 times. So the hostage has been saved and sent out of the country for a short while whilst Mack and Able travel to the rain forest to cause mayhem with the tycoons road gang which is hacking it's way through the rain forest as the mission won't take too much longer? As the mission won't take too much longer? HUH? Well folks with the wonderful functions in any word processor namely copy/paste and search/replace the author has managed to extend the above to page number 175 and not write one original word of text. A slight digression here folks to qualify a couple of the things that I absolutely love about the Big Guy's character. 1) He will never endanger innocents no matter what. I have read numerous titles where the Big Guy has stopped an operation at the last minute to protect the innocent. 2) He will never shoot a cop who he regards as fellow soldiers fact he just does not do either of these EVER! In the rain forest now at the tycoons road plant which consists of 20 soldiers providing protection for the 100 INNOCENT WORKERS and I was somewhat surprised when Mack and Able were planning the hit someone mentioned what about the innocents and well we will leave one direction open when we attack from the other directions and any of them who want to take off can but any of them who take up arms against us we will take them out. (absolute crap). Indeed the launch of the assault includes an RPG to the mess tent propane tanks where thankfully the author informs the reader it is only the soldiers eating the workers are next. Huh what about the kitchen staff the cooks maybe they were miraculously beamed out at the last minute. Now one would presume that an author of what 25 - 30 titles in these combined series (yeah I know the rest are just copies) would at least have the basic facts down pat regarding the Big Guy's character but obviously not with this title maybe his missus did the editing functions and Mike was just well too busy to bother checking what was going to be delivered to the publishers? I know I have said this MANY TIMES before and I know I sound like a parrot recording BUT HOW can the publishers allow this to happen AGAIN and AGAIN? I have no idea if any of the current authors actually still read any of these titles but if that is the case I am sure that they as well as readers who have read many titles in these series would as I do cringe when coming across one of these copy/paste sections this is crap I can accept a couple of times maybe but this is now approaching 30 at least and quite frankly personally when I open a new title and check the author I shudder when it is his nibs. Stuff it, finished it and on to something else hopefully actually worth opening.

Brazil's death squads have always been a group I'd wanted to have receive the cleansing flame of the Stony Men. Now, having Mack and Able Team combine forces to leave those who would murder and rape children screaming and dying, their bodies blasted open by Parabellum vengeance... this was one book I loved. The jungle adventure was ok... but I for one would feel that Mack would put aside his respect for the hollow, false badges of the murderers on the death squad payrolls... after all, Bolan's whacked Iranian and Soviet troops on their home turf, doing nothing more than responding to a nut in a blacksuit with a big silver magnum. But, at least Mack knew, if he was going to be fighting child-killer cops, he brought along Ironman. And having Carl Lyons and the boys along to battle death squads is just the right thing to do, and a crunchy, gory, bloody, and gruesomely brutal way to do it. I half wanted Mack to answer Gadgets' query about fighting cops like this. Gadgets:"You're going to have problems if he has cops on the scene." Mack:"That's why I brought Ironman." Carl: "Kin-A!"

This one is a fast paced book because it moves from different countries. But the plot was too typical for my taste. But there was the scene when the guys were pinned down and Mack had to make a daring move to save them.

A very good book from Mike Newton. Fast paced and actioned packed. I loved the fact that able team made an apperance here.

Finally, we have a wonderful Mike Newton book. And Able Team is in this one! Yeah!! This was very action-packed, even though it offered nothing new as far as plot.