Well, there was plenty of action from cover to cover, and most of the story took place on the sea and in the Florida keys, which was a cool factor, but overall, this title was not among the better books in the series.
There were too many small problems that drags this story down, the potential for a great book was there, but it didn't work out right.
Bolan's presence in the first place was not needed, if all they wanted him to do was check out the mysterious freighter. Ok, so the Mafia gang called the Finzi's were involved, and after Bolan tangles with them at the beginning, the story should have been an old school mafia beating of the Finzi organization. But Bolan, along with a female ally called Keene, is sent to find out what the deal is with the freighter. The complication of the various factions involved in the plot begins here, and I couldn't help wondering why all these groups were necessary to tell this tale.
There are the Romanians. But there were two factions here, the former Securitate group, and the regular Romanians. The leader of each of these are cousins.
There are the Cubans. Two factions here as well. Castro's soldiers, and another group of Cubans involved in the mix.
There are the members of the salvage company. This is a mixture of innocent civilians, and the bad guys working with at least one of the cuban factions, and in league with yet another group... the Finzis!
Throw in a mixture of "innocents" into some or all of these groups, and you get in a sense, another faction.
But wait... there's more. Add Menandres and his group of Cubans, that's right, another faction of Cubans, working covertly with the justice department, to aid Bolan later in the story.
Plenty of seagoing vessels involved in the book to keep track of. The frieghter, the tugboat, a speedboat, a sporting yacht, a cruiser, a barge, another boat, two submarines, and Bolan's torpedo thing he spends much time riding around the ocean.
Some things I didn't get is why Bolan went out on two different trips to plant explosives on two different boats. Why didn't he do both at once? And who started the fire aboard the freighter? Why did Bolan ally with the one Romanian bad guy? It was established at the beginning that he was clearly a bad guy. And just who the heck was this mysterious "sheriff" that was mentioned several times in the book. This character was never introduced, and I saw no reason for his mentioning whatsoever.
The action scenes were at times great, at other times confusing, sometimes not making much sense. But there was plenty of adventure to be had on the seas, the boats, the island, that this book had a fair amount of entertainment value, just not overall one of the books that I would suggest as any priority reading material in this long running series.
Well what words can I use ???
Boring, Confusing, could have been a lot better.
How many sub-plots,characters do you have to include in a story????
The author really gave no reason for Mack to even be there.
Well not my sort of Bolan book.
my two bobs worth........
A Romanian freighter carrying millions in gold is hijacked. After a hurricane strands the boat near Florida, Bolan and the Coast Guard investigate.
Damn, this is a hard book to review. The technical writing is phenomenal. The author really seems to have spent some time in and around ships. The writings about the time onboard are very well-written passages.
Unfortunately, the author has a terrible plot surrounding these well-written passages. He has at least 7 factions involved in the retaking of the Romanian ship. Bolan, the US Coast Guard, refugee Cubans, Castro Cubans, Romanian sailaors, Romanian secret police, the mob, Russians and US salvage workers all are vying for the ship. This is far too many sides -- it's damn near impossible to follow which sides are allied with each other at any given time. Also, some of the factions hardly belong there (the mob??) and the logic tieing these factions in is quite s atretch.
Likewise, with so many sides involved, a number of battles take place with Bolan only marginally involved, or not involved at all. This isn't a huge complaint, but it does detract from the book when random people are shooting each other. There is no investmnent by the reader into the outcome -- who cares who wins or loses.
If "Clean Sweep" didn't have such great naval writing it would be easy to dismiss this book as one of the worst. The writing redeems it to a certain extent, but can't salvage this overly convoluted novel.
Pretty solid outing starting with a good shootout in the beginning. Liked Bolan's interaction with the female agent. The writing was crisp in describing Bolan's manuevers to and from the enemy cargo ship. Even though all the action seemed to take place in only a few locations, it held my interest.
