No Rules, No Referee

I thought this book was OK. Not the best in the series but it had some good action sequences. I like the action scenes at the casino. And I thought the Helicopter chase at stella island was exciting. Also liked Don Fazzio and him comparing Phoenix Force to the executioner. If he only knew. Also liked the fact that Calvin got a little action on the side. 7 star effort.

Some good locations and nice action scenes. But plot wise there isn't much to go on. MERGE is an interesting concept, but the villains don't really present any actually menace in the story. Phoenix Force dropping their weapons makes them seem particularly inept. The action scenes make this a decent enough read, but definitely not a highlight of the PF series.

Horrible! William Fieldhouse really missed with this one! I know a good cover when I see one, but between it, it was an EPIC FAIL!!!! The only good part was the fighting between heads of the remains of the Mafia, MERGE. That pulls it to three stars instead of the one star I was gonna give it. Where to start... Oh yeah! The politician being murdered like that wouldn't happen. Usually they had some realism in these. And I don't care if Calvin is the "Black Badass!" Oh yeah, the last part of the book, the sea fight between the self-styled Don and Encizo was pretty good. As usual Fieldhouse covers up bad plots with great action! 4/10

Well quite simply this is rubbish full stop. Surprisingly as I am usually the odd one out once again I fully agree with the review by Doug (only posted what almost four years ago now wow!). The author is introducing a sinister group called MERGE comprising members of various criminal groups from here and there as the type of opponent faced by Mack in his Executioner wars series for future titles but it doesn't work in this title at all. Who knows for future titles yet to be read but this has nothing which hasn't been done before and hasn't been done so many times since. <sigh> And again how many bloody times are they going to drop or have their weapons knocked out of their hands or forget to reload their weapons or have a jam where they cannot fire? I found it an absolute bore and could not in any way recommend this for reading by readers of these series.

“No Rules, No Referee” centers around Calvin James. A congressman visiting the Bahamas is killed by a criminal syndicate called MERGE. This is a new criminal organization who is comprised of several different mafias who survived the Executioner. They will make return visits in subsequent novels … only to drop off the face of the earth without a mention. The weakness of the novel is the point-A to point-B shootouts. Phoenix Force begins the mission by showing up to the last places the congressman visited and fighting thugs who try to kill them at every opportunity. The more places they visit, the action scenes improve. I would recommend this novel only by the action alone, the plot sags like a limp clothes hanger.

In "No Rules, No Referee" the men of Phoenix Force take on a huge number of mostly incompetent bad guys. But, as usual, the Phoenix warriors manage to drop or otherwise lose their firearms often enough to make it look like they might have some trouble beating their adversaries. Judging from the amount of "shuriken-jutsu", "tanto-jutsu", knife fighting and brawling in this author's books I'd guess he was more interested in writing martial arts adventures. Generous dose of jump-rope fu for those in need of a laugh. The plot creaks along without any sense and just sets up targets to be smacked down one after another. Phoenix Force plods along, dropping their guns at every turn, with Calvin and Rafael delivering funny one-liners after kills. Mirth ensues. The villains are cobbled together out of the thinnest cardboard and provide only the slightest trace of menace. Best comedy bit: after the boys land on the villain's hard site in a glider (!) to attack they consider using that glider to pursue an escaping speed boat. I suppose after they had all strapped in and figured out they weren't moving that Manning would have used yet another "quarter pound of C-4" to make some kind of Scooby Doo JATO bottle. I might have given this book four stars but I got very tired of Calvin James being described as "the black badass", "the black warrior", "the black man", etc. OK, I get that he's black. Let it go! I expect by the next book the author will be referring to Katz as "the hebrew hero" or "the kosher badass". Shudder. Between the limping plot, uninteresting villains, silly action scenes and embarassing prose this one came in at 3 stars.

This book was a pleasure to read. The black badass, Calvin James, really amused me, and it was pretty funny that he was the only one on the whole team that gets laid. But the action is good and the plot is good.

Another one of your standard Fieldhouse book with plenty of shoot-outs. Liked it a lot.

This one was really good. It was a great showcase for the black bad ass, Calvin James.