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The Executioner #18
The Executioner: Texas Storm #18
Texas was hard territory, a giant state with a Mafia operation to match. But Mack Bolan would handle it one number at a time. In order of appearance. A single man against well-armed killers. It was a hell of a way to live. . . or die.
The word had come to the Executioner that mobsters were moving in on the tremendously lucrative oil fields. Klingmans Wells, among the most profitable in the midlands, was the first to go out of business. The daughter of the owner had disappeared, too, and Klingman himself was in seclusion in his Dallas apartment. No one knew why. Bolan would have to find out. And that was only the beginning.
The word had come to the Executioner that mobsters were moving in on the tremendously lucrative oil fields. Klingmans Wells, among the most profitable in the midlands, was the first to go out of business. The daughter of the owner had disappeared, too, and Klingman himself was in seclusion in his Dallas apartment. No one knew why. Bolan would have to find out. And that was only the beginning.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
73 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
About the author
Don Pendleton
1,524 books190 followersDon Pendleton was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 12, 1927 and died October 23, 1995 in Arizona.
He wrote mystery, action/adventure, science-fiction, crime fiction, suspense, short stories, nonfiction, and was a comic scriptwriter, poet, screenwriter, essayist, and metaphysical scholar. He published more than 125 books in his long career, and his books have been published in more than 25 foreign languages with close to two hundred million copies in print throughout the world.
After producing a number of science-fiction and mystery novels, Don launched in 1969 the phenomenal Mack Bolan: The Executioner, which quickly emerged as the original, definitive Action/Adventure series. His successful paperback books inspired a new particularly American literary genre during the early 1970's, and Don became known as "the father of action/adventure."
"Although The Executioner Series is far and away my most significant contribution to world literature, I still do not perceive myself as 'belonging' to any particular literary niche. I am simply a storyteller, an entertainer who hopes to enthrall with visions of the reader's own incipient greatness."
Don Pendleton's original Executioner Series are now in ebooks, published by Open Road Media. 37 of the original novels.
Wikipedia: Don Pendleton
He wrote mystery, action/adventure, science-fiction, crime fiction, suspense, short stories, nonfiction, and was a comic scriptwriter, poet, screenwriter, essayist, and metaphysical scholar. He published more than 125 books in his long career, and his books have been published in more than 25 foreign languages with close to two hundred million copies in print throughout the world.
After producing a number of science-fiction and mystery novels, Don launched in 1969 the phenomenal Mack Bolan: The Executioner, which quickly emerged as the original, definitive Action/Adventure series. His successful paperback books inspired a new particularly American literary genre during the early 1970's, and Don became known as "the father of action/adventure."
"Although The Executioner Series is far and away my most significant contribution to world literature, I still do not perceive myself as 'belonging' to any particular literary niche. I am simply a storyteller, an entertainer who hopes to enthrall with visions of the reader's own incipient greatness."
Don Pendleton's original Executioner Series are now in ebooks, published by Open Road Media. 37 of the original novels.
Wikipedia: Don Pendleton
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
September 8, 2017
Violent, silly, overblown, "Texas Storm" is the literary equivalent of a Michael Bey movie. The story is basically just dialog after dialog with a lot of blowed them up good in between. Calling the Mafia's scheme in this book threadbare is overstating it. It's actually kind of goofy and comic-bookish in a bad way. "Texas Storm" is far inferior to the only other book I've read in this series (the first one, "War Against the Mafia"). Part of that is how over the top the writing and plot is (and it is really pretentious to preface this thing with a T.S. Eliot quote), but also because there's never once the feeling that the Hero, Mack Bolan, is ever in any real danger. All his plans work out perfectly. The Mafia is never presented as a true threat. (They're more like paper tigers than anything else. Utterly incompetent compared to the Great Mack Bolan.) And at no point, does Bolan get injured, much less in a situation from which there seems no escape. It's all too easy for Bolan. Which makes the book, despite all the explosions and bloodshed pretty damned boring.
February 21, 2020
Bolan is in the Lone Star state, looking into the Mob's interest in the oil rich fields. Plenty of action, as he tabs the Mafia pilot Grimaldi for help getting into and out by the air.
July 27, 2020
When the mob begins moving on Texas’s lucrative oil fields Bolan blows into the state like a category 5 hurricane. Action occurs at a breakneck pace from the Midland oil wells to the financial center of Houston to the capital in Austin as Bolan continues his one man war against the Mafia. Expect the explosive gun play, bloodletting and nefarious plots that the Executioner has become known for.
August 1, 2023
A really solid entry in the series. Taut, violent and fun.
October 22, 2018
This one has a very, very unlikely premise--the Mafia is planning to stage a coup to seize control of Texas oil reserves and re-form an independent Republic of Texas with themselves in charge. But if you just go with this, the plot flows along smoothly and quickly. As was the case with a number of the original Executioner novels, the action covers one day as Mack Bolan uses the help of a re-occurring character (pilot Jack Grimaldi) to zip across the state via jet plane & helicopter, whacking Mafia higher-ups and attacking mob strongholds. It's a particularly fun entry in the series.
July 17, 2012
Three stars out of five might be a little too generous on this one, but five out of ten seemed a little low.
The very end was clever enough that I got a grin. The pathway to the end was not Pendleton's best. In fact, the more I think about it, this one might be a two-star. I'll probably re-write this review, later, when I've decided between two or three.
The very end was clever enough that I got a grin. The pathway to the end was not Pendleton's best. In fact, the more I think about it, this one might be a two-star. I'll probably re-write this review, later, when I've decided between two or three.
October 4, 2019
An excellent men's adventure series from the 60s, 70's and 80's. The first 38 books are outstanding but then the series is taken over by a bunch of new writers writing under the name of the original creator and they take the series into a new direction I did not care for. The first 38 books are very recommended
November 2, 2015
Lots of action
March 6, 2021
Continues the adventures of Mack Bolan and his crusade against the Mafia.
July 21, 2025
Bolan blows into the Lone Star state to take care of some Mafia stink. Action filled men's adventure series from the early '70s.
Read
May 28, 2021As best as I can piece together, the timeline of The Executioner series begins in August of 1968 or 1969. War Against the Mafia was first published in March 1969, and the text of that book refers to events happening in August. The next couple of books also provide some dates but by Nightmare in New York and Chicago Wipeout, we can only infer the dates from the season (both are clearly set in winter). From that point it gets a little trickier. Clearly, this was a decision made by Pendleton to allow the story to unfold without locking it to any particular year; he obviously wasn't writing the books in real-time and the publication dates were getting farther and farther ahead in time from the story dates. Which leads us to Texas Storm.
Published in March 1974, the prologue sets the book in "late spring." As I think about the events of the past 7 books or so, it's hard to get a sense of how much time has passed. The spring immediately following that first winter feels too soon, but it also feels wrong if it's a full year later. Either way, Pendleton is writing this book from at least 3 years into Mack Bolan's future and knows things Bolan doesn't -- specifically, the impending 1973 oil crisis.
Reading these books now, 50ish years after they were published, it's fun to get a time capsule snapshot of what life was like back then. I find it interesting to know where the world was headed and the levels of corruption society would reach that Bolan himself couldn't imagine. But this is next level. In this story, Bolan stumbles onto a Mafia plot to takeover Texas and split it off as its own country in anticipation of a possible oil crisis. It's a James Bond villain level scheme that somehow works here because the author and the reader know what's coming.
So I enjoyed that aspect to the book. In addition, the plot is pretty streamlined, the action is a little uninspired until the end, yet clears the bar overall, the ending isn't especially abrupt, and there's very little Bolan propaganda or philosophizing. Some of the weaker elements include setting up a new Mafia hit team (with the silly moniker, "the Bolan Bunch") to replace the Talifero brothers but then quickly dispatching them by the end of the book; also there's a telephone conversation where Bolan tries to justify his actions to a reporter that's so awkward it feels like it was written by a kid in junior high school.
Overall, it's a quick fun read that didn't make me annoyed, which is better than average for me and this series.
Published in March 1974, the prologue sets the book in "late spring." As I think about the events of the past 7 books or so, it's hard to get a sense of how much time has passed. The spring immediately following that first winter feels too soon, but it also feels wrong if it's a full year later. Either way, Pendleton is writing this book from at least 3 years into Mack Bolan's future and knows things Bolan doesn't -- specifically, the impending 1973 oil crisis.
Reading these books now, 50ish years after they were published, it's fun to get a time capsule snapshot of what life was like back then. I find it interesting to know where the world was headed and the levels of corruption society would reach that Bolan himself couldn't imagine. But this is next level. In this story, Bolan stumbles onto a Mafia plot to takeover Texas and split it off as its own country in anticipation of a possible oil crisis. It's a James Bond villain level scheme that somehow works here because the author and the reader know what's coming.
So I enjoyed that aspect to the book. In addition, the plot is pretty streamlined, the action is a little uninspired until the end, yet clears the bar overall, the ending isn't especially abrupt, and there's very little Bolan propaganda or philosophizing. Some of the weaker elements include setting up a new Mafia hit team (with the silly moniker, "the Bolan Bunch") to replace the Talifero brothers but then quickly dispatching them by the end of the book; also there's a telephone conversation where Bolan tries to justify his actions to a reporter that's so awkward it feels like it was written by a kid in junior high school.
Overall, it's a quick fun read that didn't make me annoyed, which is better than average for me and this series.
January 19, 2021
Something was rotten in Texas. Bolan did not know precisely what that something was...Klingman’s Wells had once been among the most productive oil leases in the midlands. Not now. Several months back, the rich wells of Klingman Petro had abruptly gone out of production, much to the surprise of other oilmen in the area. And an air of mystery had settled upon the place...And Klingman’s Wells was now without a doubt a very important mob centerpoint...The most painstaking investigation had failed to reveal to the Executioner’s curious mind the true name of the Mafia game in Texas. But there was more than one way to gain intelligence; if you couldn’t pry it loose then maybe you could blast it into the open. And that was the real nature of this daring dawn strike at a mob command post; it was shock therapy, to be delivered in Bolan’s inimitable style of blockbuster warfare. The shock waves just might rattle something loose and into the intelligence network.
March 12, 2023
Deciding I needed some big dumb 70's action in my life I got a 3-pack of old Executioner paperbacks and got exactly what I was asking for. As I read Texas Storm, a part of me realized I was wanting something more. Sure things were blowing up, bullets were flying all over and men were dying left and right but could we have a little more story? With every chapter, I kept asking myself, how does Bolan know to be at this place and this time when the sh!t goes down? He saves a girl from the mafia at the beginning of the book, brings her to a hotel naked then leaves her there for the rest of the book going on with his mission. At least get her some clothes and make sure she's okay. Overall, not a terrible diversion but I'm hoping the other 2 books are better.
February 12, 2021
A great entry really has all you want from a book in this series. This time he is taking out the mafia and their highly placed friends in Texas. They are trying to take the state over and make it into an independent country with its vast resources, mainly the oil during an oil crisis. Lots of action and we get an early apperance from a longtime ongoing character, pilot extraordinaire Jason Grimaldi.
Highly recommended, all the Pendleton written books in this series are great and this is one of the better ones to boot
Highly recommended, all the Pendleton written books in this series are great and this is one of the better ones to boot
July 5, 2022
Even after finishing this one, I can't really think of anything that makes it stand out in the series. Neither great nor terrible, it kind of just fills in the gaps of the saga of Mack Bolan's war everlasting". There's less mafia backstory and more spycraft/espionage than previous entries,which l enjoyed, but the political conspiracy undertones didn't really do it for me this time around (thoughI know this is far more of a common theme in the much later iterations of Mack Bolan).
December 2, 2024
Texas Storm has good Executioner vigilante action but less quantity compared to the 17 previous books. 70’s style violence with a topical plot inclusion of the energy crisis experienced concurrently with the writing of this installment. 2.5 stars.
May 17, 2018
A quick easy read
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
August 10, 2020
Thanks to kindle I can revisit Bolan in what I call just a fun week end read.
January 31, 2023
Great Series
Read the books in order... It will make more sense and you will enjoy them even more . These books are escapism at its best!!!
Read the books in order... It will make more sense and you will enjoy them even more . These books are escapism at its best!!!
December 1, 2023
Nothing better then seeing Mack Bolan stopping the Mafia from trying to take over the Oil Industry in Texas
September 21, 2014
Bolan took Texas.
November 17, 2018
read some time in 1980
Read
July 22, 2018Texas no longer part of the United States? No way if Bolan has anything to do with it.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews