Steven Hildreth, Jr.

Doug Wojtowicz was the man who taught me how to write. Those who have read his contributions to the Mack Bolan series of novels and that have read my own work can tell that there are several stylistic differences between the two of us, but a good pupil branches out from what the instructor has given them as a baseline. By no means does this mean that my work is superior to his, nor does it mean that it is inferior, merely that it is different. But I digress. The original point I was going for here is that having known Doug for a number of years now, I know a little something regarding the constraints that Gold Eagle--the distributor of the Mack Bolan series of novels--places on its ghostwriters. (For the uninitiated--on Goodreads and Amazon, it will mark all Mack Bolan affiliated novels as being penned by Don Pendleton, but he ceased writing the Bolan books in the late seventies, and passed away in the 1990s. His legacy is carried on through a team of ghostwriters. To find which author penned which book, flip to the fourth page and look for a passage similar to this: "Special thanks and acknowledgment to Doug Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.") The books can only be so long. Older SuperBolan and Stony Man novels used to be rather thick, but in recent years, they have tightened word limits for reasons unknown to me. They also place character constraints, which I will be touching on momentarily. EXTERMINATION deals with a terrorist group known only as Greenwar, which has delivered a staggering ultimatum to the world's superpowers--bid to eliminate a percentage of the population to be spared from a plague that causes insane fury and tricks the body into thinking that it is starving. The bidding begins at 20% of a country's population, and demonstrations across the world let the world leaders know that Greenwar's leader, a shadowy figure named Bezoar, is indeed serious. The Department of Justice's Sensitive Operations Group--known to insiders as Stony Man--races into action, with Able Team investigating the attacks in the heartland of America and Phoenix Force chasing down leads from Europe to India. My only problem with Wojtowicz's work is that he is too good. I read his work, I see characters or plot points I would have personally brought up, and I know Doug would have done the same, but his hands are tied by the publishers. Regardless, he manages to work wonders within the confines of his work. EXTERMINATION is pulp action at its finest, down to the weapons details, tactics, character quirks and wisecracks, and plot twists and grisly action by the pound. Most other Bolan writers, I see that writing Bolans is a perfect fit for them, but as I read Doug's work, it screams to me that he merits his own novel, with his own characters, and his own constraints. One issue I will bring up, and this is aimed at the publishers--this threat contained within the plot was something that threatened to kill the entire world. Why wasn't Mack Bolan brought in to assist? There was a perfect plot point where Bolan could have reunited with his former Death Squad teammates, Herman Schwarz and Rosario Blancanales. And with something of this magnitude, wouldn't you want the deadliest weapon in your arsenal fighting side-by-side with you? As far as the plot itself--at first, I thought it was a more grisly version of a certain Tom Clancy novel, but the more I read into it, it actually reminded me of a certain critically acclaimed superhero movie from a few years back. Whether this parallel was intentional or not is not to my knowledge, but the plot works masterfully, and all ends are tied up loosely at the novel's conclusion. Bottom line, pound for pound, nobody delivers pulp action like Doug Wojtowicz, and EXTERMINATION is no exception.

This book is one of the greatest. Marcinko's violent action and rude and crude language makes for a great book.

The return of SPECTRE was really good. The plot was well written, the women great, and the action was pretty good. I really liked this one.

This book was a pleasure to read. The black badass, Calvin James, really amused me, and it was pretty funny that he was the only one on the whole team that gets laid. But the action is good and the plot is good.