Stealth Assassin

The copyright page incorrectly claims that Mike Newton is the author, but this is incorrect as it is Michael A Black. I was fascinated by the opening chapter of Bolan being in southern Yemen on a mission to assassinate a terrorist as it so closely mirrored the opening of my own Bolan adventure, Armed Response. Definitely a case of great minds think alike :) I did enjoy the opening chapter. There was a lot of information in short a short novel and I think Black handled it well. The villains, were quite well fleshed out, although I did tire of Novak's constant chess references. In all honesty, the plot would have worked better in a slightly larger novel. There is a lot of globe trotting as well for such a short novella. We move from Yemen to Syria to Washington to Ethiopia to Washington to Virginia and I have no idea how long the adventure would have taken place, but I guess about a week? If I had to find fault, it would be this. I have looked back at reviews of other books by this author, and I have to agree that his portrayal of Jack Grimaldi is awful. Grimaldi comes across as a total ass and I cannot imagine such an unprofessional character existing in a special ops team. Equally, he was more commando than pilot and I wonder why Black did not just use one of the other Stony Man characters, or even continue with one of the spec ops team introduced in the opening chapters. But all in all this was an enjoyable romp.