Evil Kingdom

I thought this was an excellent read for the middle of the trilogy. Odom carries on the character development from the first title and builds again whilst retaining the plot. Franco's character was excellent and even though I was expecting him to bite the dust I flicked pages after the bomb blast just to see. my two bobs worth............

Mel Odom writes a brilliant middle book in this trilogy. The focus moves away from AT, leaving that angle for the third book. PF gets in some good action and the priest introduced early in book one has a major role in this novel. The main storline centers around a new character called Franco, who is the new man in charge of bringing people against the cocaine cartels. His main target is Costanza, and Bolan finds a new ally for his war, along with the Canadian troop mentioned in book one. This is some of Odom's best writing I have seen yet. A good mix of action and storyline moves the trilogy along swiftly and smoothly. I liked the part where Barbara Price goes to Miami to confront Constantine in his office. And the side story of Flynn making a buy of drugs while Franco was giving his anti-drug speech and the ensuing events was a great touch to the novel. A great book to link the first and third novels together, I was pleased with it.

Bolan and Phoenix Force continue their South American blitz. Bolan is in Columbia trying to nail down cartel leaders. He finds a priest and a young justice minister who serve as his allies. Meanwhile, Phoenix Force is in Panama trying to capture a corrupt government leader. Their mission is complicated by the U.S. invasion, searching for the same target. The book is pretty good. Some action scenes are well done, and this book, the second in the trilogy, has a much more cohesive plot than the first. However, "Evil Kingdom" is not without its flaws. Phoenix Force is under utilized. They pop up every 30 pages or so for a firefight and then disappear. Nothing they do seems to really advance the plot. They were strictly superfluous. Meanwhile, Able Team is completely MIA. Ths would be fine if their role was to be limited to random firefights (like Phoenix Force). However, Lyons was kidnapped at the end of the first book. This entire book, spanning 4 days, shows nothing of the rest of the team (including Turrin) searching for Lyons. Instead, we get blurbs when Bolan checks in -- "Any word on Able Team?" "They're running into strong interference." "Stay hard." Unsatisfying. Overall, though, the main Bolan plot is good and carries this novel through some of the rough patches. It isn't great, but "Evil Kingdom" is a vast improvement over "Blood Rules" and makes for a good read.

This was a very exciting book and a good continuation of the trilogy, but the absence of Able Team was disturbing in light of how it was left open in the previous book, a bit of a let down from the action packed first part, but overall an excellent read!

DEFINATELY A GOOD BOOK CONSIDERING THAT IT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITE TRILOGIES. ABLE TEAM'S ABSENCE IN THIS ONE AND CARL LYONS'S DISAPPEARENCE MAKE IT SXCITING AND SUSPENSEFUL AT THE SAME TIME. I ALSO LIKE IT BECAUSE EVEN WITH REINFORCEMENT U. S. TROOPS THERE TO FIGHT AS BACKUP, THE MEDELLIN CARTRL STILL GETS THE BETTER OF EVERYONE AT THE END OF THE BOOK LEAVING IT OPEN TO WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT.

I thought this was the best of the trilogy, and I liked them bringing a historical event(invasion of Panama) into this. But my big question was: Where the hell was Able Team?