The Big Kill

Why this book was ever released as an Executioner book is beyond me. Bolan is portrayed totally divorced from any other books in the series. Since when does Mack start blowing away cops (good or dirty)? I was actually looking forward to the last section of the book wondering how Mack was going to avoid shooting at the three cops and still save the day. And he just blows away the Sheriff??? The last paragraph informs us that Carbone won't be stopping until he kills Fontanelli and until Fontanelli can extract the information on Mob activities Mack will be at his side. So the planet will stop while Mack babysits Fontanelli ? Crap a FULL BLOWN assault on Carbone's fortress resulting in a climax of Bolan executing him would have been a fitting ending to this book. The book does have some very entertaining sections but I had to plod through it after it became apparent the author was off on his own tangent regarding Bolan's character. I can't understand why the publishers released this as an Executioner title and agree with the prior comment it should have been released as some FBI book or something. Anyway my two bobs worth.

I really can only mirror what Monsta Mack and Maxdanger have said in their reviews. This book was okay but read very slow at times. McDade uses a different approach for Bolan this time in that the Executioner has to bodyguard a potential witness from the New York mafia. Unfortunately this is where the plot failed as a Bolan story. It reads more like an FBI agent stry but Bolan's name is inserted instead. The witness, a mafiosi's son has to investigate his own company to find out if the mob have been laundering money through it. All well and good, but since when has Bolan needed hard evidence to go after the mob? He knew who the enemy were, but spent the book worrying about evidence. So this didn't add up. Then there was the ending. There was an ending, wasn't there? Not really. We, the readers, are left dangling. Bolan rescues the witnesses kidnapped son (and we find out during the final gunfight that Boaln has no compuction about shooting dirty cops) and the story finishes suddenly with these sentences "They could enjoy a breif respite but the warrior knew that Carbone would pursue Dominick with dogged determination.....But until Fontanelli accessed the information that revealed the extent of Mob infiltration, Bolan would be there at his side." Sorry, Mack? What happened to your modus operandi? Go and shoot Carbone. Don't hang around at Dominck's side for the rest of your life. he other thing that bugged me was the murder of the prostitute that was mntioned throughout the book. It was never explained why she was murdered or by whom. So, all in all, just an average story that could have been better.

This book was an ok story with some good scenes here and there, but the pacing of the novel was very slow. I don't know if it was really that slow, or it just seemed that way because after reading #131 Ice Wolf and then The Big Kill, the pacing difference between the two was like going from riding a ferrari down the Autobahn to riding a scooter through a lake of tar. Also, when Bolan shot the guy outside the hospital, he just left the guy dying as he searched the van gathering weapons and taking them to his blazer and then went inside the hospital. The real Bolan would have put a mercy round in the guy right away. The ending wasn't as good as I had hoped either, bringing this snail of a novel to a abrupt unsatisfying conclusion. Not a book worth hunting down if you don't have a copy yet.

The son is a college graduate has accepted help from the Mob without realizing it, and is now confronted with the death of an old girlfriend. Her death leads him to the realization that the Mob is involved in his own businesses. Before he can turn evidence, the Mob tries to hit him. Bolan is involved in the protection of the businessman. Good read. The winter setting is a nice change of pace, and the snow plays a major factor in the book. Bolan as a bodyguard is a good change also -- it takes away his "combat stretch" and makes him more vulnerable. This one was a quick read, and a good one. Low points have to do with editing. Somehow, it feels like this book is missing something. The conclusion comes to quickly, and some plot threads are left unexplained. Perhaps this was meant to be a larger book; it seems incomplete. Good read for the most part. A real page-turner.

I enjoyed this one a lot.

A decent effort that worked.

A fairly good book. The snow scenes were very good.