Chair Master

I totally agree with Editreject’s review of this title. The tension and atmosphere were outstanding in this book. The scene with Saragossa under her hotel bed was perfect in my opinion. I genuinely felt a rush of adrenaline and was covering up the parts of the page that I hadn’t read yet so I didn’t accidentally see what was going to happen. This was some outstanding writing, not just for a Bolan book, but any kind of fiction. The environment seemed to be as much of a character as the bad guys were. Bolan also seemed human in that he made mistakes and certain things he tried didn’t work out for him. This made for quick page turning on my part. I did kind of lose track of what the importance of the cell phone was but with the flow of action and suspense going on I didn’t care. There is a scene where something happens that Bolan gets very vengeful. The way this was described on the page made it come vividly to life in my minds eye. It actually stirred emotions in me and I found myself cheering the big guy on and was feeling his pain. I admire writers that are able to draw those kind of scenes with words. I strongly feel that this title should be near the top of the list and I encourage every Mack Bolan fan to read it. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

This started out to be a great book but it had some very glaring flaws that I will put in my 2 cents on further in. The Good: Grimaldi plays a big part in this and the dialogue between him and Bolan is excellent. I really got the feeling that they were close friends and had been through a lot together over the years. Leo Turrin makes an appearance as well and gets to kick ass. The characters were very well written. I like the author’s style, I could visualize how the people looked not really based on physical description but their actions and mannerisms. That was cool. The action scenes seemed tight, well described, and flowed pretty smooth. The bad guys were interesting and well fleshed out. The Bad: SPOILERS ARE BELOW One minor flaw is there was a character with one arm who “raises his hands” and later on has an arm in a cast. Bad editing I think but didn’t take away from the story in my opinion. To me this seemed like it may have been written to be a Super Bolan but was chopped down to fit the smaller format. It felt like scenes were missing that were mentioned about later in the story but were never described in detail. The big glaring problem for me was that the “Firestorm” weapon was never really described. The opening scene, which was intense, had a guy die from what I was assuming was this weapon that Bolan was going after. It seemed like a cool concept and I kept reading hoping to find out more about it. The ending seemed very abrupt. It appeared that Bolan was attacked by this mysterious weapon and was having some difficulty from it. All of the sudden he blows some stuff up then Leo and Jack are helping him to his feet with no further description on his injuries. I don’t regret having read this book. Even though it had the flaws that I mentioned I still was entertained reading it and flew through it in a few sittings. I look forward to reading more titles by this author because I like the way he writes. I think if he would have had the larger format to tell his story in that this would have been a superb story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It reminded me of some of the better older Able Team books. I agree with the other reviewers in how the opening scene with the sub was pretty intense. The stand off at the diner was top notch in my opinion and really well written. I could visualize the action easily and almost smell the gunpowder. I too think the motivation for the bad guys was a little thin but the Able Team scenes more than made up for this I felt. My biggest problem was Phoenix Force’s role in the story. It seemed like it was rushed in there to fit the required number of pages. It might have been a little smoother if the two story lines didn’t have as many pages between them. It felt like the flow was going good in the Able parts but stalled when it got to PF. It was like trying to race a Ferrari down a stretch of road that has a bunch of stop lights. Overall it was a fine read and ranks up there with my favorite Stony Mans

Let me start by saying that Doug is one of my favorite current authors in the Bolanverse. I reviewed “Aftershock” under the name Bobg and wish I could go back and give it more stars because I just reread it and liked it better the 2nd time around. As soon as I saw that Doug was going to have this book coming out I was anxious to get my hands on it. I had built up a big expectation based on his past work so I eagerly started reading it as soon as I opened the shipment box. The opening sequences seemed a little hard to follow and as I’ve said in the past, it may be because of the editing. This one in particular because I’m sure they had to cut some stuff to fit the Room 59 preview in the back. As I kept reading I started to get more into it and was digging the over the top violence and action that Doug is so famous for. I particularly liked the description of eyeball fluids. Great stuff! Then certain things started happening that I thought was pretty out of character for a Bolan book that I almost quit reading it. It felt like I was reading a cross between a Doc Savage book and Indiana Jones movie, both of which I like but did not feel like human sacrifices and flesh eating Komodo dragons fit into how I think a Bolan story should be. So I put the book down for a few days and contemplated shelving it. Then one night I decided to get the stick out of my butt, open my mind, and give it another shot. I paid money for this book so I was going to finish it by gosh. I told myself I’m not reading a Pulitzer Prize winning deep novel but an action adventure story that is written to entertain. I’m glad I gave it another chance because entertain it did. It turned out to be a real page-turner, the scene with Bolan and the two sisters was pretty adrenaline filled and the ending was top notch. So far this is the most “different” type of Bolan book that I’ve read but I highly recommend this as a good read. If you start stumbling through like I did, give it a chance, you’ll be glad you did. Thanks Doug.