Bloodsport

One of the best things about doing a re-reading of my Bolan books is coming across one I haven't read before. Such is the case with Bloodsport. Somehow the tale of two terrorist twins escaped my notice back in the eighties. It was a pleasant surprise to find an unread "new" Executioner story. I really enjoyed the read. The author's first Bolan attempt is a successful one. The descriptions used throughout the story are excellent; the gun shots and fist fights are brought to life with a brilliant use of colorful adjectives. And it is obvious that the author did his homework; past events are mentioned with relevance, really building the overall feel of a submersive environment. Additionally, the writer uses supporting characters to strong effect. Hal, April and Jack are on hand in this tale. The enemies were properly disgusting. Burning their own troops is gruesome, not to mention the torture deaths of two agents described in detail. On top of that, the overall plan calls for killing hundreds of children. The evil twin thing has been done before, but so what? It's an easy and fun way to make the bad guys memorable. Another great, early Bolan book that is an excellent quick read.

There is little a like about this book. So little, that I'm not sure what to write here. The plot was alright, but the book was overall very corny. Bolan infiltrates a German terrorist group and influences them to fight against another terror group based in Germany. The villains were not very intriguing and the whole prisoner scene with the olympians was ridiculous. Didn't like it at all.

A good book, but I would not place it amongst Ray Obstfeld's best. A mediocre outing. Certainly had lots of potential, but it just didn't seem to live up to it. It certainly has some highlights in the action scenes and I enjoyed Bolan pretending to be the rogue general. The warehouse scenes and moments afterwards when he is in this role are pretty fun and well-written. The kidnapped athletes plot line could have been pretty interesting, but it just doesn't seem to work in the novel. A fun read, but not the most engaging title in the series.

Pretty good read here where the Big Guy goes undercover again infiltrating a terrorist group known as the Zwilling Horde led by a couple of psychotic male and female twins. The terrorist group have kidnapped four Olympic athletes who each have special abilities necessary for the terrorist group to succeed in their plans and are being held hostage when the Big Guy is reluctantly admitted into the group. Learning of their plans he goes about making sure that they won't succeed with a climax ending in the forest where he takes down the group with a little assistance. Pretty good read with not a lot of standout sections to be read but there are many titles not as good a read as this one out there in the series. Worth a read I reckon.

Quite average story of its time. Some strange aspects in it though like Bolan gets angery over fact that there is not death penalty use in Europe. All so I failed to see real connection between plot in story and to events in to which story was dedcated to.

I didn´t have any real expectations for this book as the last few ones I have read have been very disappointing but good things sometimes happen and this book was much better than I had hoped for. The reason, well............ good plot, interesting characters and great infiltration by the main man all though it was copied from Bolan´s Mafia war days but it was great all the same as the situation was different all though the war was a similar one. The psycho twins, Tanya and Thomas along with Rudi the sidekick, were very interested characters but it would have made the book even better if these characters would have shown more "depth" in their personality. These three are in the "hall of fame" of the weird villains in the Bolan books. I liked the way Tanya controled her little army of thugs and terrorists by having sex with them. That was a new twist in personnel control!!!!! A great first Bolan book for this author and it will be interesting to read some of his later books in the series. (2004)

His Savannah Swingsaw and Fire Eaters were far better novels then this. This was slightly above mediocre. The story and infiltration by Mack was rather ordinary nothing to write home about. What made this book more readable was Tanya and Thomas (twins) two rather creepy psychos. To me there seemed to have been implied incest which added to the creep factor. As villian go these two rank high on creepiness. I did find the use of 4 Olympic athletes to be rather dumb. Especially the karate expert and the archer. Somewhere it is written you do not give weapons to hostages - giving an archer a bow and arrow is just plain dumb. The karate athlete why risk it? Not a very smart plan. I liked how Jack was used and used for comic relief. A big plus was the scene with General Wilson and Jack Grimaldi was reading a German newspaper and just looked at the pictures. A very short novel 2.5 hours maximum for anyone to get through. A solid 6.

I really liked this one. Ray Obstfeld's books add a spice to the Bolan series. Gold Eagle should get him to write a Bolan now and then these days. After reading paramilitary plot, then this, I was surprised how two different writing styles can both tell a great Bolan adventure. great stuff.

I really wanted to like this book after reading the good reviews, but maybe that was the problem -- I came in with too high of expectations. Yes, the one-on-one fight with Rudi is decent enough, but the stuff leading up to it was really just so-so, and not much of the undercover stuff really held my interest. There are much better Executioner books out there by far.

How rare to find an Executioner novel without somebody holding a gun on the cover. Even rarer is to find the cover art actually relates to an actual scene from the book! The hand-to-hand battle between Bolan and Rudi was well-handled, as was the pacing. The psycho-twins was an interesting concept in terms of a villain. Overall a great apparent first effort in the series by the author. Wonder what became of him?

Another mission for The Executioner finds him in Germany trying to destroy a terrorist group. He assumes the identity of a corrupt army sergeant to infiltrate their gang and bring them down. The infiltration, so often used by Mack Bolan against the mafia, is a bit different here because he isn't assuming a role that commands respect and trust. Also, there is some action going on during this impersonation. The Zwilling Horde are memorable chiefly because of their leaders, the twins Tanya and Thomas Morganslicht. A nasty and interesting pair of misfit killers. Besides them only Rudi, the big moron who Bolan goads into a fight and mangles handily, is given more than a brief mention. Most of the gang are just targets for Bolan. Mack fights most of this book without the AutoMag and Beretta. Instead he uses a space-age type HK G-ll casesless assault rifle (the book says "assault gun" but I didn't get the sense they actually meant that Bolan had a motorized, low velocity, large bore, direct fire artillery piece firing HE to reduce strongpoints to rubble in support of an infantry advance.) Sounded like an interesting weapon. The action isn't as frequent as in some of the other recent books but there are some good tense scenes with the twins and the hostages. Jack Grimaldi is on board but doesn't have much to do. Likewise April and Hal who are at Stony Man providing information and worrying. I enjoyed this one for the action, the interesting villains, the way Mack goes about his undercover work. It rates 8 stars.

Blood sport I thought was a good novel how ever I felt that it could have had more CQB and Unarmed combat in it. But the plot is original as all of the Executioner series of books. Overall I would have given it: 7.8

GOOD BOOK WITH A GOOD STORY. I LIKED SEEING BOLAN UNDERCOVER AGAIN. THE FIGHT SCENE WITH BOLAN VERSUS RUDI WAS WELL DONE.

A REAL GOOD ONE. THE FIGHT BETWEEN BOLAN AND RUDI RULED AND WAS THE BEST PART OF THE BOOK.

A good one. Nice undercover role for Bolan