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Mack Bolan the Executioner #66
Orbiting Omega
Midnight. Suddenly the Moscow sky bursts into broad daylight. Eight hours later a similar flash also bathes Washington D.C., in its glaring spill.
Twenty-five thousand miles above the two capitals, exploding hydrogen warheads have ruptured the night. In the name of peace, a misguided U.S. scientist has cracked the access code to an orbiting missile and detonated two of its MIRV warheads.
And that is just a warning.
Mack Bolan, destined to patrol the desolate hinterland of terrorism, learns of this horrifying event from a secret link. Thermonuclear doom! The words echo in The Executioners mind as he assaults the scientists hissing snakepit.
Twenty-five thousand miles above the two capitals, exploding hydrogen warheads have ruptured the night. In the name of peace, a misguided U.S. scientist has cracked the access code to an orbiting missile and detonated two of its MIRV warheads.
And that is just a warning.
Mack Bolan, destined to patrol the desolate hinterland of terrorism, learns of this horrifying event from a secret link. Thermonuclear doom! The words echo in The Executioners mind as he assaults the scientists hissing snakepit.
Paperback
Published May 1, 1984
About the author
Don Pendleton
1,538 books196 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 15, 2026
The Executioner Mack Bolan is making his way up the steep sides of a booby-trapped military installation on a mesa in Arizona. Upon reaching the building on top and realizing these traps were all set to intentionally miss him with tracer gunfire, he starts to wonder why such a massive effort and expense would be made to essentially mock and not injure attackers?
Turns out there is an American scientist named Dunning, a dreamer optimist so committed to defensive tech as an alternative to offensive nuclear missile stockpiles that he has gone off the grid and brought down an American satellite in order to prove the effectiveness of his anti-missile designs. This scientist is a blackmailer and threat now to the world order and while trying to trace his whereabouts Bolan finds there is a Russian KGB duo who are also looking for Dr. Dunning.
"Orbiting Omega" (1984) is the 66th episode of the Executioner series and was ghost-written by Chet Cunningham. Mack Bolan, aka The Executioner, aka "Sergeant Mercy," aka Col. John Phoenix, in the earliest episodes was on a crusade of vengeance against the American mob. Now he is taking on other challenges across the globe with his near-photographic memory, weapons and explosives proficiency, secret parts of the global US military support network at his disposal, and his never-ending goal of ridding the world of criminal elements that hurt the innocent.
Bolan's interactions with the beautiful female Russian agent will probably turn out about how you'd expect, with a fun dose of distrust, attraction, one upmanship, and nationalist fervor keeping things edgy and surprising while they fight their way to this misguided doctor and his accomplices.
Verdict: A fun action-adventure mission for America's greatest operative against sinister enemies.
Jeff's Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
Turns out there is an American scientist named Dunning, a dreamer optimist so committed to defensive tech as an alternative to offensive nuclear missile stockpiles that he has gone off the grid and brought down an American satellite in order to prove the effectiveness of his anti-missile designs. This scientist is a blackmailer and threat now to the world order and while trying to trace his whereabouts Bolan finds there is a Russian KGB duo who are also looking for Dr. Dunning.
"Orbiting Omega" (1984) is the 66th episode of the Executioner series and was ghost-written by Chet Cunningham. Mack Bolan, aka The Executioner, aka "Sergeant Mercy," aka Col. John Phoenix, in the earliest episodes was on a crusade of vengeance against the American mob. Now he is taking on other challenges across the globe with his near-photographic memory, weapons and explosives proficiency, secret parts of the global US military support network at his disposal, and his never-ending goal of ridding the world of criminal elements that hurt the innocent.
Bolan's interactions with the beautiful female Russian agent will probably turn out about how you'd expect, with a fun dose of distrust, attraction, one upmanship, and nationalist fervor keeping things edgy and surprising while they fight their way to this misguided doctor and his accomplices.
Verdict: A fun action-adventure mission for America's greatest operative against sinister enemies.
Jeff's Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
April 8, 2026
This was probably the weakest one I've read to this point. It's by Chet Cunningham who can write a good yarn, but this isn't Bolan. It reads nothing like an Executioner book. Overall, it's ok, but the forces he is up against are fairly weak. He seems to struggle against stuff that wouldn't make him bat an eye in any other book. Basically, a brilliant ex NASA scientist found a way to snatch weapon platforms in outer space that the US and Russia have. The scientist is trying to blackmail both nations into giving up their offensive weapons to make the world a safer place. However, his assistant has taken over with a couple of dozen national guard troops. Bolan runs into a KGB agent who is also trying to find the scientist and teams up with her.
Can't recommend. Again, it's not bad but just sort of dull and doesn't really fit with what we have learned about the character in the 65 previous books.
Can't recommend. Again, it's not bad but just sort of dull and doesn't really fit with what we have learned about the character in the 65 previous books.
August 21, 2023
2.5 stars
This 66th book in the series is wholly readable, but for whatever reason it failed to resonate with me like Cunningham’s previous work. It’s probably somewhere along the lines of a plot that never really felt utilized to its full potential and Bolan himself seeming totally out of it half the time, missing obvious clues and making some very amateurish mistakes with no explanation. Yeah I like my heroes to be at least a little fallible but here it was as if Bolan had zero experience in being the executioner and this was his first mission.
This 66th book in the series is wholly readable, but for whatever reason it failed to resonate with me like Cunningham’s previous work. It’s probably somewhere along the lines of a plot that never really felt utilized to its full potential and Bolan himself seeming totally out of it half the time, missing obvious clues and making some very amateurish mistakes with no explanation. Yeah I like my heroes to be at least a little fallible but here it was as if Bolan had zero experience in being the executioner and this was his first mission.
June 7, 2020
One of the better Bolan books I've read so far. Chet Cunningham wrote half of the volumes of another series I like, The Penetrator. So this one sort of falls in line with that. Also one funny aspect of this is that The Executioner teams up with a dreaded female KGB agent. A little after they team up, Bolan and the women decide to have relations. So in other words, all be it crude, but Bolan screws the Russians once again.
The Executioner is out on the trail of a former NASA scientist that is out for peace. No matter at what cost. He explodes two orbiting missiles over each The U.S. and Russia. He wants total disarmament. He has a small army run by a Japanese warrior with some ulterior motives. Bolan and the before mentioned KGB agent have to stop them before the holocaust rains down on the earth.
The Executioner is out on the trail of a former NASA scientist that is out for peace. No matter at what cost. He explodes two orbiting missiles over each The U.S. and Russia. He wants total disarmament. He has a small army run by a Japanese warrior with some ulterior motives. Bolan and the before mentioned KGB agent have to stop them before the holocaust rains down on the earth.
December 1, 2023
The first Bolan book I read where he dosen't face the Mob but the KGB and I loved the Final Knife Fight between Bolan and Dunning
September 22, 2021
Bolan must work WITH the KGB instead of eliminating those who were responsible for his beloved April's death?! {Gasp} Well, this should be an interesting tale...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews