Gulf Vet

I can't add much to what's already been said about this top-notch effort from Pendleton. If you're looking for one of the original books in this series and can't get your hands of DAY OF MOURNING or WAR AGAINST THE MAFIA, this one will do in terms of letting you know how The Executioner became the ground-breaking series it was. Simply terrific on all levels.

This was a well-plotted book with some excellent characterizations, especially with T.J. Hawkins, who comes up against his arch-nemesis. Like others, I enjoyed the Jayne Bahn character, too. There's ample action and even Katz gets into the fray along with Bolan at one point in a cool chase through a game preserve. I had a small quibble with the use of fictionalized countries, but not enough to keep this from being a tenner. A must-read for STony Man junkies.

A clever premise and well-executed -- pardon the pun, but there are some great-if-gruesome executions here. Claudette Simms came across as a full-blooded femme fatale and not just some cardboard cutout. Renauld tends to dance around the nuts-and-bolts when it comes to shootouts, but seeing as it's easy to get that stuff from other writers, this came across as a nice change of pace from the usual Able Team. I think somebody wrote that he was a television writer and it shows because the story is well-paced and structured with a good idea for visual details. I did wonder, though, why Pol's sister suddenly dropped off the map after her prominent appearance only a couple books before (Firecross), but I guess it's hard to keep up continuity with these series sometimes.

This was top-notch until around halfway through, when it started to feel like more of a rough draft than a finished product. Arnett did a good job of writing strong female characters (Toni and Lao Ti) as well as the guys, but I wished the whole read would have been as satisfying as the front end.

Not to be confused with the SuperBolan by the same title that just came out (don't the editors do their homework?) This book kind of reminded me of the old Nick Fury and His Howling Commandoes Marvel comics my dad keeps wrapped in plastic for posterity. The only problem is the comics read faster than this book did. Having been to Mexico often, the sketchiness of the locale and use of stereotypes got to be annoying. Some great battle scenes and decent dialogue, but it just didn't all come together for me.

An okay take on familiar ground dating back to the Dirty Harry rogue cop movie (I forget the title offhand) on up through The Star Chamber. There were some good action sequences but unless gore-rific is your cup of tea, the splatter gets old real quick. Most of the dialogue was on the cartoonish side, too.