Bobg

For me this was a highly entertaining entry in the series. It is balls to the wall non stop action and seemed to have a Quinten Tarrantino vibe to it which was cool. The villains and supporting characters were cool. I thought that La Guitarista was an interesting character and he had some awesome scenes. Every shoot out scene was a blockbuster. Bolan uses almost everything you can think of as a weapon in this book, a nylon strap, wooden staff, MK-19, and even a tomahawk. I literally could not put this book down and read it in one sitting. My only complaint about this book was that it was too short.

I felt this was a worthy installment to the series. It didn’t have the high body count and number of gun battles that most of the books do but it did have an engaging plot in my opinion. The Good: 1. I read the biography blurb about Jerry Van Cook and see that he has first hand experience in undercover police work. That came through in this story. The tension and suspense that was built around Bolan and Ranger Wilson was great and felt believable to me. The way they got to work for one of the bad guys was slick and enjoyable to read. 2. During the first action sequence Bolan didn’t make the shot he was insanely trying to but…..(see bad). 3. The bad guy was evil and well developed enough to be an interesting adversary and I looked forward to his demise. The Bad: 1. In the first action sequence I could not understand why Bolan was trying all these contortionist moves in the driver’s seat when Wilson could have done the shooting from the passenger side instead. ( I know I’m being vague but I don’t want to post a spoiler) 2. Bolan does the old gun in each hand shooting at the same time like a John Woo movie. I know he’s probably fired a trillion rounds and is a great shot but the two handed thing seems too unrealistic. This is just a pet peeve of mine and this is not the only book that Bolan does this in. 3. There was a perfect set up for Bolan and Wilson to maintain their cover that could be used in future stories but it didn’t end up that way. Like I mentioned above, this was a worthy installment, it had good pacing and was well written. The locations were great and the supporting characters were cool. I give a good recommendation to this one.

This book started off good. I liked the interrogation scene at the beginning. It seemed realistic to me. I enjoyed the supporting characters Nazrah and Vanaki. The chasing down of Sobor and him slipping away was pretty riveting. The inventive use of a Camel Back was interesting as well. I liked the description and use of the Baghdad Bullet but I am a knife and gun geek myself so that’s just my opinion. I like it when the authors go into detail about the weapons and equipment that they carry and Jerry Van Cook has a good talent for that. The things I didn’t like were that Bolan was like a superman. Some of the gun battles seemed like the ones in the movie “Desparado”. To me they were too over the top and way to unrealistic. I know that most of Bolan’s battles in any book are stretching the limits of believability but the ones in this book just went a little too far. The scenes where Bolan gets stopped by the police and when he and Nazrah go in the police station were a little bit to over the top for me as well. My favorite bad guy was Kitwana Asab. I thought he was well written and an evil enough bastard that I was looking forward to him getting his dues. I didn’t like that over half of the book was Bolan and his cronies chasing down Sobor and it seemed like it didn’t even end up mattering. The way the supply of bio weapons was found seemed a little too lucky for me and took away from the tension in my opinion. It may seem like I don’t have many good things to say about this book but I don’t feel like I wasted my time reading it. I don’t regret the $6.50 that I spent on it. I just chose to suspend reality and enjoy it for what it was. It wasn’t one of my favorites but it still was fun to read.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. This one had it all. Over the top violence and over the top “SGT Mercy”, a fast moving action filled plot that never let up. There may be a few spoilers here. The good: 1. The supporting characters were very interesting and there was good enough character development that I actually cared about them. I hope we get to see some of them again in the future. 2. I felt there was the right mixture of action with plot. In 99% of these books that I read they go into graphic detail about the gun fights which I usually enjoy, but sometimes it feels like the battles are drawn out to fit the required pages. One of the scenes I liked about this book was when Bolan roughs up a bad guy and tells him to pass along a message for him. When Bolan leaves the room he goes out and wastes a bunch of body guards. The battle wasn’t described in graphic detail but you knew what was going on. I thought that was classy and made more room for plot. There was just the right amount of exploding heads, caved in chests, shredded pelvises, brains on the wall etc… 3. The bad guy Arcuri was refreshing. He was an evil bastard that seemed to have realistic goals. He was not trying to take over the world with a chemical agent or nuke. 4. I thought the interactions between Arcuri and Abood were great. One of the scenes was written so well that it made my jaw hurt. 5. Some of the scenes had a spaghetti western feel to me which I thought were great. I like the way Bolan was manipulating people to do his dirty work for him. 6. Having the Stony Man Farm people being able to watch the final battle by satellite and not being able to do anything was a nice touch and added the right amount of tension. The Bad: 1. At the beginning some of the SGT Mercy scenes seemed a little too much for my tastes but they went by pretty quick and did help set the tone for the story. 2. This is more for the series as a whole not just this book, it would be nice to see some of these villains survive and come back in future books. Overall there are very few bad things I can say about this book, it was $5.00 well spent and I recommend it as a good read.

This is the first Bolan I've read in about 20 + years so I am by no means an expert here. I agree with the two previous reviewers about the muddied plot. It could be because it was poorly edited and not the fault of the author because he obviously seems pretty talented and knows what he's doing. The car chase was one of the most intense chases I've ever read in a book. When I was reading it I felt like I needed to attach a seatbelt to my recliner. The author made me feel as if I was in the car as well. I also feel that the story should have ended around page 200 instead of throughing in all the extra characters just to kill more people off. It felt like either the book should have been longer so the author could have fleshed the story out or he was trying to cram more story in to get the required pages into the book. Again this could have been editing. If it would have ended around page 200 some of the bad guys may have gotten away but that isn't always a bad thing. They were interesting enough characters that they coiuld have made for some good stories in the future. I do look forward to more installments from this author.