Mack Bolan is a sergeant in Vietnam. He is a deadly sniper known as the Executioner. One day he received news that his father, mother and sister are dead with his younger brother in the hospital. Getting emergency leave he heads home to Pittsfield. He finds out his father killed his mother and sister then shot himself. The police close the case as a murder/suicide. Bolan finds out his father had taken out a loan from the mob. His sister became a prostitute to pay off the debt. This news is what drove the father to kill himself and his family. He finds out he has been waging war against the wrong enemy. Bolan gets a sniper rifle and takes out the thugs at the local collection agency. Then Bolan infiltrates the mob and wages a one-man war. Hunted by the mob and the police he starts to destroy the local organization while becoming a folk hero to the public. An explosive conclusion ends in the destruction of the local mob as Bolan gets ready to take his crusade nationwide.
I AM NOT THEIR JUDGE. I AM THEIR JUDGEMENT. I AM THEIR EXECUTIONER.
So begins a quote at the beginning of the book by Mack Bolan. Don Pendleton is considered the father of the modern men’s adventure. His groundbreaking series featuring the vigilante Mack Bolan became a phenomenon that still sees books coming out now. You couldn’t visit the local book spinner or rack at the local grocery store in the eighties and not see all sorts of Mack Bolan paperbacks. You could say he came up with the whole vigilante genre. That lone individual who suffered a tragedy that the law was incapable of bringing to justice. So, he takes the law into his own hands. There was a flood of imitators since, but they never could match his creation. I always wanted to read this series and found the first book at the local Half Price very cheap.
So how was it? I loved it. The story holds you from beginning to end. Bolan is this man who has a personality that won’t let him not do something when he sees injustice. He takes a very impersonal view to it and considers his war as a crusade against evil. He knows that it is an impossible task that will end in his death. Yet he still does it anyway. The Mafia or “The Organization” as they like to call themselves is portrayed as a well-oiled machine. They even use computers which in 1969 was way ahead of the times. I loved this book and will have to check out further ones in the series to see this continuation of war on crime.
THE BOOKS THAT TIME FORGOT. 