Steely Gaze

After having this book highly recommended to myself, and after having enjoyed each of the other Doug W. Bolan books I've read, I was eager to dive into Devil's Playground, maybe too eager. The start of this one is quite disappointing; a few trite shoot-outs, a plot that could have come from any Mike Newton Bolan, and plenty of editing errors that drove me crazy. So why am I giving this one an 8? Because though the first quarter of the novel was by-the-numbers, the rest of it was hugely entertaining. This novel finds Bolan helping to clear out a drug cartel in Acapulco, while being played by the governor's wife, who wants the cartel out so that her death cult can easily sweep in and take over. It doesn't sound too special and could be from any number of regular Bolanverse stories, especially when you toss in some Russian mafiya boys as additional cannon fodder, but it grows much more interesting halfway through, because that's when we get the weird supernatural angle. The main villaness, who only really comes out as a real nasty in the last third of the book, believes that she is on a mission from a Death Goddess to kill Mack. Okay, so she's a looney, and the voices in her head can easily be explained away. But the author manages a lot of clever tricks to appease the more...believing side of me. And best of all, the eerie overtones don't feel out of place at all. Also great were the supporting characters, the angry twin sister of a law officer murdered by the high priestess and a journalist helping her prove her sister wasn't involved in the Acapulco drug trade. They had enough of the spotlight to themselves without taking away any of Mack's thunder, and each was interesting and enjoyable to read about, especially the female part of the equation. It's such a relief to find a competent female character in one of these books who manages to hold her own realistically in fights and not get captured and need rescuing. One surprising disappointment to me were the action scenes. Normally, in Doug W.'s books, I find some extremely well-written action scenes that meld huge bodycounts with compelling writing. But here, most of the action scenes were pedestrian, even against some interesting villains, such as the Russian mafiya leader with half a paralyzed face (thanks to one of Bolan's blitzes in Moscow). Big shootouts with lots of falling bodies, but little imagination or excitement. Fortunately, several high-quality action scenes do make up for the weaker ones. Including the massive ending shootout, which was extremely thrilling, and a fight between Mack and two komodo dragons that has to be read to be believed. Overall, I really wanted to give this a 9, but several irritating editing and continuity errors refuse to let me do that. A couple of the minor dialog ones (characters knowing of events they shouldn't) I could easily ignore or explain away, but a character's last name seemingly changing and a mysterious gun that disappears three times and yet returns magically to the owner's hand? That's unacceptable to me. But still, these faults are minor. I'd highly recommend Devil's Playground, just as it was recommended to me. Although with the advice that it might take a little while to really get going.

This marks the first Peter Leslie Bolan novel I've read, and I must say, it was far better than I expected from the write-up on the back. The plot starts out more James Bond-ish than Mack Bolan-ish, with Mack infiltrating a group of occult obsessed businessmen. Why is he doing this? Well, a sniper took a shot at him and Brognola, and the attack was loosely linked to a British company that manufactures parts for the B-2 Stealth bomber, and they think something's being covered up. The plot is weak, though it moves quickly enough, and soon we learn of a fairly mediocre scheme to make a profit, no matter who has to be killed along the way. It's not amazing, but I feel it would have been better without so much needless build-up. It's almost as if the author wanted to try and improve the story by making each character refer to the villains' plot as diabolical and terrible, even though it was nothing Earth-shattering. But the action scenes were well-written, and the villains were unique and interesting. No mustache-twirlers here. One thing that bothered me was the lack of a coherent description during a couple of scenes, namely those set in the large mansion and it's outlying property. Buildings seemed to move to wherever it was convenient to have them. Things felt muddled doing those scenes, and eventually I just gave up trying to map it out and just went with the flow. It made it easier, though somewhat irritating. There were also two stealth scenes that would have benefited from a little editing. Each was too long and unclear; very dull, unlike most of the book. There were a couple of side-characters as well, including the requisite beautiful female agent, and they held up fairly well. They never dominated the book, but had enough personality to keep from being boring. Overall this is a good read, but not a great one. If there was a little less running about aimlessly during some of the chase scenes on the sprawling mansion property and better descriptions of that property, then this one might have been a real winner, instead of a mild recommendation.

Well I know it's not a good way to begin a review, but this book wasn't as bad as I expected. I'm not a big fan of McDade's novels, especially not his convoluted Superbolans, so I went into Meltdown with a little apprehension. I got better than I expected, but this is still a book with some major flaws. The story has a Russian villain deciding to dismantle America's nuclear program by staging an incident at one of our reactors. He has help in the form of a mercenary killer and a clueless anti-nuke crusader. He has an enemy in Mack Bolan, and two Mossad agents who may or may not be working for the CIA. The plot moves fairly well, although it is sufficiently padded with useless scenes. Including a completely unexplained assault on a munitions depot and a safehouse for the villains. How did Mack know about these seemingly unrelated locations? The reader won't find out, the throw-away excuse being that there was some "intel". Intel from who? Brognola presumably, but as I said, these scenes are useless. I bet the main story could have easily been wrapped up in 190 or 200 pages. Instead, we get over 250 pages, and most of the middle is fluff to pad it out between the good beginning and exciting ending. Mack is handled very well, even if some of his actions are highly suspect. In one scene, it is implied that he is aware of three terrorist attacks the Russian plans on unleashing. Does he stop them? No. Does he even try? No. The Executioner is nowhere to be found! And I found it highly unlikely that Mack would let innocent people, including several cops, die without a fight. The villains aren't bad, but like all the characters in this story, they get thrust out of the spotlight real quick. The quiet mercenary? We see him in the beginning, being quite chillingly violent, and then don't see him as anything but a gofer for the rest of the novel. Glinkov, our KGB baddie? A schemer and manipulator who doesn't become truly threatening until the end. And what of our allies? We've got a female ('natch) former(yeah, right) Mossad agent helping Mack in the first couple chapters. Guess what happens to her? Yup, she gets kidnapped. How original. And we're asked to care about a woman who appeared three times before she was captured and had maybe two lines? Sorry, not me. Eli Cohen, Bolan's other mysterious partner, who has some shadowy reasons to be stopping Glinkov, is much more formed and I actually enjoyed reading the scenes with him and Mack. The other character I had problems with was Brognola. I always like the dialog between him and Mack, since they know each other so well it makes for an interesting dynamic, but here he seemed more like M. from James Bond than the hard-hitting fed I know and love. He kept information from Mack like a second-rate spy and mostly gave tidbits while sitting behind his desk. Definitely the wrong characterization to use! The main action scenes were great, especially the slam-bang ending, but some of the smaller, more filler-like, scenes lacked punch and ended in a heartbeat. McDade has always impressed me with his sense of action, and he's in mostly fine form here. Since I hate how McDade tends to get convoluted and silly, making most of his Bolan novels a game of spy vs. spy, I was pleased to find this one was more smooth. His prose is still a little troublesome, almost as though he's trying for a Raymond Chandler/James Bond hybrid, but here he's tolerable. Not great mind you, but a notch above average.

Nazis always make for good villains, don't they? Well, though they soon grow tiresome, the fact that the main villain in this novel is a crazed Nazi scientist who has created an army of killer seagulls doesn't hurt the book at all. The plot has Remo and Chuin racing to find a stolen stealth bomber, and winding up on an island off the Florida Keys inhabited by lepers. Turns out these lepers have been moved from Hawaii, where they had been given sanctuary by a previous Master of Sinanju. It also seems that an army of SPIDER Nazis has control of the island, and their mad scientist leader is using the lepers for experiments. This doesn't sit well with Chuin at all, as he has pledged to protect these people. So the duo head into action. Well eventually. Actually, the action doesn't really pick up until the last couple chapters, where everything moves at a breakneck pace, but up till then, things are dealt out a little more slowly. And that's okay in this case, as the writing is excellent and though the action is slow to start, the pace is good, keeping the pages turning at a fast speed. We have a villain to really hate, a beautiful woman who isn't in complete control of her mind, and a lot of vicious birds ready to go all Alfred Hitchcock on anyone who dares disturb them. All the makings of a good action novel in my opinion. I really liked how the story also focused on Smith for a change, showing us a bit of his past and giving him a personal motivation against this particular slimy Nazi. Getting him involved in the main plot was a very good idea and provided some great scenes showing him in the thick of it. Humor has always been a hallmark of the Destroyer series, and that is evident here, with a couple of hilarious moments, including a scene where Chuin tries to use a payphone without paying "tribute" to it. Overall, this is an excellent addition in the series, with some solid action later on, good side characters, plenty of humor, and a lot of fun.

A familiar plot greeted me as I began this book. Bolan must stop a power-mad warlord from smuggling weapons into an impoverished African nation in food and medical containers so that he won't assassinate the democratically elected president and take over. But that didn't deter me from reading it, and a good thing too, as this was an excellent, action-packed read. The main plot involves Bolan being asked to do an easy job; escort an undercover agent out of Holland. Turns out this guy had learned some pretty big things about the aforementioned weapon-smuggling, and he needed to get word out. But he was killed after giving this information to the only person he could trust: A beautiful young American woman working for the relief organization that is being used to smuggle the weapons. So now, Bolan has to protect her and get at the head honchos in this mess. The African warlord; a Colombian drug kingpin who is helping to finance this revolution; and a British mercenary who has hired out his men to help in the take-over. The villains are okay, but we only see each of them once before their inevitable execution, and they never really feel all that menacing. I also had qualms with Bolan in the opening segment in Holland. He felt less like the Executioner, and more like James Bond. A more violent James Bond granted, but he still had diplomatic immunity, access to whatever agents and weapons he needed, and way too much help in my opinion. When we get to Africa, though, things pick up as Bolan is cut off from the rest of the world and must make do with what he can. This turns out to be fairly easy, as we see from several action scenes that leave us with a huge bodycount. That's where this novel really shines. Each action set-piece is well-written and varied. There was a couple of hand-to-hand moments, some knife scenes, vehicular carnage, and, of course, plenty of shooting. Each scene seemed to be trying to outdo the previous ones, making things move fast and yet surprisingly smoothly. I wasn't bored at all with the pace in this one. The descriptions were excellent as well. Each scene was planted firmly in my mind with a minimum of fuss and the action was clear and easy to follow. This novel may not have had a brilliant plot, but it delivered where it mattered. Definitely a read I would heartily recommend.