Target Lock

There might have been a few moments here and there in the book that I liked, but overall this was a bland and mediocre entry in the series. Bolan is in Panama, with a local sidekick in tow, instead of Grimaldi, going about the business of the hit list and eventually getting the various factions to start going against each other and the expected sniper scene to warn them that they need to release the female hostage and so on, you know the drill. The final battle takes place in a soccer stadium for some reason, I couldn't figure out why, I must have dozed off and missed something, but a nothing special ending to a nothing special book. Not worth reading unless you never read an Executioner novel before.

I pick up the book and read the back cover and part of which "Bolan applies the strategy that has served him in countless battles" and for some strange reason I immediately thought to myself yep Mike Newton over and over again. So I open the book to check who the author is and it actually is Mike Newton shiver, premonition ? PLOT: Mack is off to Panama to assist the resistance and disrupt a major drug pipeline. CHARACTERS: Chinese red army Chinese triads Panamanian corrupt officials okay we have enough for the rattle the cages and set them against each other parts. Guillermo Cruz the resistance leader Okay we have an ally for Mack and someone we can kill off at the end of the title. Ariana Vasquez who is stunningly attractive (of course) Okay we have the necessary female kidnap/hostage part. PLOT: Not necessary as we are only doing a rewrite. Simply start hitting the different oppositions and blame it on their friends/rivals/competitors. Sew some mistrust between the parties. Have the introduced female character being kidnapped/caught/taken as a hostage. Already we have filled up almost half a book folks. Start attacking different interests of the friends of the person holding the hostage and leave messages that he should really think about releasing the hostage if he knows what is good for him. At this stage we can include the necessary sniper scenes which will fill up a few pages. Of course after numerous calls from his friends he agrees to do just this. Now we can insert the scene for the hostage transfer and the setting up for same and the actual battle. Terrific we have filled another quarter of the book. Okay now to finish off the book we can regain the hostage and continue our campaign of turning the groups against one another and set up a final battle zone which Mack can wade through and selectively take out key elements of the groups. Of course we must include the final scene where Mack's ally must be killed as this is a prerequisite. SUMMARY: If you have read #249 Shadow Target #233 Tough Justice #229 Zero Tolerance #194 Deadly contest etc etc etc etc etc (I can't be bothered going back any further) Forget it you have already read it. Do the publishers actually read any of the proofs forwarded to them prior to publication? SURELY SOMEONE MUST think to themselves hey this seems familiar to me ???? It is yet another COPY with the names changed to protect the already PUBLISHED...

A rather bland entry to the series. Not one of the better attempts. Too many villains jumbled together at first made for some confusion. Bolan's oath in this case didn't seem to fit in with the story. These cops were murderers. There was really nothing new or that hadn't done done before...several other times.

I thought that this book was terrible. I'm getting so sick and tired of watching Mack Bolan A.K.A. God, always never getting hurt and killed. I'm starting to think he's God himself. This book is like so many other of them, it has the same plot as all the others. There needs to be a cahnge in the series.

Not a bad story, even though it uses the old tried and tired formula of Bolan turning the bad guys against each other and blowing up half of Panama to get a girl free. It was better written than a lot of Mr Newton's later books, in fact it is more of a return to his old style of writing!

This one shined in terms of the villains, and the supporting characters, but it also shows one glaring weakness in the Gold Eagle line of books: We got Mack stuck in situations in which he really is hamstrung to act. The Panamanian Death Squads (or even Brazilian, Chilean, or whatever) are a threat that Bolan has moral trouble with because of his sacred vow never to kill or seriously injure a law enforcement officer, no matter how cruel or brutal he is. Frankly, Brognola should have tagged this mission for Lyons and Able Team, since they not only have experience with smashing death squads, but Lyons actually feels its his duty to flush chunks of crooked badges down the sewer. Other than that, Bolan has some good fights in this one.

This book was very good. It had lots of action in it. I liked the location and the storyline. I hope Mack Bolan has another mission in Panama.