Rage for Justice

A returning CIA character from #215 Fire Hammer contacts Bolan to help her, and the big guy is off to China for the first part of the book. The action is fast and furious, in and around the city of Urumchi. Here the slave labor operations making the goods are the focal point as Bolan and his CIA sidekick blitz through them. This part of the book read more like a Newton novel, a hit list oriented action with sniper scene included. While the action was good, I thought there wasn't enough devoted to anything else at this stage of the story. What bothered me though about the story thus far had to do with the packet of info that the CIA agent and her partner had collected on the operation before Bolan's arrival. After capturing her and killing her partner, and taking the packet of info, wouldn't you, as the bad guy, simply destroy the evidence against you? Yet neither the agent nor Bolan considered this and wouldn't you know this cosmic sized plothole went on and the badguys still had this packet of info lying around and well, later in the story you see what happens. This ruined the story to some extent for me, so knocking a star off for this wierdness. Moving on to the united states along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the story took a better turn for part two of the story. This is where the book really starts to take off and I thought was a much improved reading experience, great action, characters, dialogue, and locations make this a terrific conclusion to the novel. I came into this book not expecting it to be as good as the author's first superBolan title, High Aggression, which I consider to be on of the best ever, so I wasn't disappointed with it, I was happy enough with Rage For Justice to continue to look forward to more from this writer.

Terrific read here which will certainly keep you entertained. The Mob (god bless them) have teamed up with a Chinese would be king who has a few hundred slaves/prisoners who are working in his sweat shops knocking out cheap copies of expensive electronic items and when imported to the States massive profits are being reaped by both partners. The CIA send two agents to China to investigate that end of the operation which results in some bad news for one of them and the other a kick arse Chinese/American female making an emergency telephone call to Stony Man Farm. huh? It is explained sort of I know she had featured before in the series but I was under pressure as to the way she contacts the Farm, I thought that the Farm was one of the most secure locations on the planet and it seemed a bit lame how it was done but nonetheless. The Big Guy who happens to be Down Under at the time (imagine that) is contacted and off to China we go. The Chinese section is pretty much by the numbers where numerous businesses and goods are destroyed where the Big Guy and his little pocket dynamo ally create havoc. Some very good anger and rage sections here where the Big Guy sees the squalid conditions where the slave/prisoners are being held at the prison and sweat shops. Off back to the States and the title really takes off where it is non stop action with a couple of very well written sub plots. I really liked the guy who was the purchasing manager of one of the importers who has been cooking the books as he is in the Mafia Don's pocket amazing what a few photographs can show very well written. Many sections to like here where probably the helicopter fight scenes and the boarding of the ship were standouts but certainly not orphans. I loved it and was close to reviewing a ten but the starting half whilst fine reading dragged it down one star. Highly recommended reading from me.

Gotta be honest. It's been a while since I read this book, but the female protagonist, Jiahua, was, to quote Cartman from South Park, "Kick-ass!" I'd love to see more of her.

From the very start, this book hit the afterburners, kicked the tires, lit the fires, and RAMMED non-stop action down your throat, did a tap dance, and made sure you swallowed it. Bolan's war in China against the XSEA may have been your typical smash of an organized crime setup in the Urumchi province, but it was an attack where Bolan and Cello actually were at risk. Towards the end when Bolan was facing the combined forces of the XSEA and Yan Wuan, he was bearing the scars of this battle. And... not everything went magically his way. The scene in the assault on the prison, where Bolan damn near sends himself falling three stories into a fireball was a thriller. The same with the attack on the China Sea, when Bolan and Grimaldi actually meet some stiff resistance, and then nearly get obliterated by the very explosives they put on the boat. By the time we got to the end of this bad mother jumper, we'd seen Bolan at war in two nations, an honestly earned bodycount for the Executioner (Grimaldi piloting a small helicopter without gun pods? Why some writers would have had him with an F-14 to knock out the convoy). Hell, even Jack is getting good at this, moving fast enough that Bolan doesn't have to do twice the killing just because Jack's too slow to take down a target. Several times Grimaldi gets a good score before Bolan's lead hits his target. Even the showdown between Bolan and the State Trooper was great. Somheil's quickly becoming a welcome name on the indicia page... ...even if he does wanna ruin poor Jack's teeth.

This was worth reading. I liked the charactors, as terry said. a cool ending to.

This one isn't one of the best. It took too much time on Mack going down his hit list. Usually that's good, but not in this instance. But the one good thing is the ending. Where the girl actually takes out the villian. This one is one of the more dramatic.

Overall, I found this to be a very entertaining book. I thought the 2nd half of the book was better than the first half. The part in China tended to drag a little bit more in my opinion than the fast-paced Texas part. It was great to see Jiahua in the action again (first appeared in #215). In my opinion, its always cool seeing a woman kick ass against Animal Man. Also I liked how her past was vaguely hinted at (perhaps she was abused?) - we gotta see more of her; her character seems like it has great potential. I had never (in recent memory) seen Grimaldi in the thick and dirty, fighting on land by Mack's side, that was OK, but I think I liked Jiahua by his side more. I DID, however really like the helicopter fight. That really kept the energy flowing. The plotline with the cop on stakeout in Texas kinda fizzled out. I was sure Bolan would somehow end up working with him or at least meet him. I got a kick out of the sub-notebook computer that Bolan used on his flight from China.