Duty Killer

I wanted to love this book. I heard so many good things about it maybe I had overly high expectations built for it that couldn't possibly hold up to the actual reading...so needless to say I guess you have probably figured I didn't love it...hell, I didn't even like it that much. I was expecting something great and fresh out of a series that, which while I do enjoy, has quite frankly began to show it's age. What I got was something else entirely. Page after page of recaps and what has gone before, endless explanations of the same mish mash of conspiracy theories, ancient astronaut hypothesis' and warmed over hokum folklore that has been hashed and rehashed over and over in paqst volumes...OK, I can deal with that...it's pretty much been a staple of the series since book two. But the new and original rebirth I had heard so much about...nope...not here...this book takes so many cliches, standards, and flat out threadworn stock plot points from such a hodge podge of sources ranging from TV, movies, comic books, and even video games, it's like a crash course in genre fiction from the past fifty years. I can't think of one original idea in the whole book! Take all of the above throw them in a blender and out comes a blah gray mess. I hope this book was just a misstep in the shaping of something great to come in future volumes...I expect better from the author, and I'm sure he'll come through in the future. But this was one big swing and a miss!

The late sixties were a turbulent time in America. The country was literally divided into two camps, the establishment and the anti-establishment. Into this time a new author named Don Pendleton stepped up and created a unique character in the annals of fiction. A character who was a man trained to kill by the establishment, who fought the good fight under the wing of the establishment, who is then forced to become the ultimate anti-establishment warrior. A man who fought a war of his OWN, whose only guideline was his conscience and his deep founded sense of right and wrong. That man, of course is Mack Samuel Bolan. Pendleton created a character truly original. He was often imitated but NEVER duplicated. His initial offerings stnad as the hallmark to which all modern action adventure must be judged against. Mack Bolan breathes...he reaches off the page and grabs you. And this book, the one that started it all, stands above all the rest. Many, many writers have tried their hands at the Bolan legend since Don gave up the series. Some more successfully than others...yet most, if not all, have done an admirable job of showing what their vision of Mack the Bastard is and have remained true to the basis of Don Pendleton's unique vision. But nothing can top the work of his creator, and the greatest most gripping tale of the man called The Executioner is and will remain always...War Against The Mafia!