Blood and Sand

I agree with previous reviews this title is ridiculously over the top with carnage, rivers of blood, arms, legs along with assorted body parts are flying everywhere throughout the title. Really liked the last four or so of this author's titles in this series but not here. Disappointing I would give it a miss unless you have to read it.

The excesses in carnage took this book down a peg. Sure, there was much action, but the villain could have been someone you sympathized with. Not so in this case. He didn't care whether innocents were killed in his quest to avenge his family. I thought more might be made out of Bolan's undercover aspect, but it was over quickly. So, good on the action front, but just too much unnecessary bloodshed.

Blood and Sand was a disappointment. First here are some good points: how the action scenes were written. Some good scenes: After the FBI has their fiasco against the villains in the bldg., Mack arrives and evens out the odds. I especially liked Mack's fight on the elevator. I also thought the concept was good: that Bolan was tracking a villain who also lost his family but who, unlike Bolan, turned to crime. Negative points: However, the book did not delve too much into Bolan and Don Marqi. It never explained why each man chose different paths after having had the same family loss. There was no psychological/moral insight into why Bolan and Marqui were as they were. Consequently, there was no character depth and their actions were not character driven. THe concept had lots of potential but the author never made use of it. Also, the action scenes eventually become tiresome and boring. So boring that I decided not to read the last few chapters. A truly good Executioner book has to be more than a one-dimensional action sequence. This story could have been better.

Wow the first review for this novel. One of Schmidts better novels. Why? Dante Marquis. This was an unusual villian. He seemed until his wife and child were killed by Mahmad the terrorists just a ruthless businessman who loved his family. He wanted revenge on this terrorists and those who worked with him or touched his life in any way. The problem was he had his mercs kill everyone including innocent women and children. He was like a wealthy, nonsoldier Mack Bolan but walked down the darkside. I also liked how with each loss Dante was slipping further from reality. Mack had a tough time although he in some ways he was just fighting with a huge number of soldiers and the planes were doing a lot of damage. He even had Dante do a huge hit for him that softened both the terrorists and Dante's people. I like how Schmidt does action scenes. Everything seemed so planned out and there is a believability about his battles like he takes the time to choreograph how an attack could proceed and what would happen. Nothing unrealistic about his fights. The firefight between the Feds, Syrian terrorists and French mercs was a case in point this was in the US. The problem I had with the novel was the ending. To pat. The interpol agent who we never meet shot it out to the death against police and lost.Dead in less then a paragraph. The American agent traitor took his own life. Wow all less then a page and a half.