Blood Heat Zero

Mack Bolan the Executioner #90

by Don Pendleton (Series Creator), Peter Leslie (Contributor)

Mack Bolan decides to vacation in Iceland, but attempts are made on his life by Russian agents before he can even begin exploring the glaciers

Genres: Fiction, Action

185 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1986

About the author

Don 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

Reviews

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even executioners go on vacation. Unfortunately, some really bad guys refuse to believe that and are convinced that the Executioner has come to Iceland to destroy their secret project, refusing to believe the evidence that he is on a wilderness vacation riding the rapids down a dangerous underground river. Besides a great plot, I really enjoyed the descriptions of the scenery, geography, and history of Iceland and its people.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mack Bolan can never catch a break. On his 2nd attempt at a vacation, in which he attempts to solo trek Iceland, he quickly become embroiled in a Russian conspiracy to use Iceland’s natural resources and volcanic geology to build a secret submarine base and thwart NATO treaties. Of course, Bolan being the kind of man he is, can’t let it slide, and with the help of some secret Norwegian agents, he takes on the might of the KGB almost single handedly.

This is Peter Leslie’s 3rd Executioner novel and at this point it’s pretty clear he has perfected the formula: an exotic locale, an intertwined plot, and lots of violence that seems to revel in gunplay and seething. Unlike Pendleton and Mertz and even Newton, his version of the Executioner novels are far more cynical and mean spirited, which, generally, makes Bolan a bit more believable. There’s also a lot less moral high ground and Bolan leaves his soapbox at home. Instead he’s blowing away Russians right and left with high tech weaponry as well as quite a lot of explosives.

Despite that, Leslie isn’t one of my favorite authors in this series. I enjoy his vision of Bolan, yes, but his books always feel kind of jarring when sandwiched between Mertz and Newton’s work.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mentioned in my Nick Carter Blood Heat Zero review that I preferred that book to this one, but it's not for any particular faults in this adventure. In fact, I think the finale of this book is one of the better ones that I've recently encountered in a Bolan book. The tension of sabotage and subterfuge is always more enjoyable than a guns-blazing firefight in my opinion, but your mileage may vary. This book also manages to avoid the Bolan temptation to churn through pages with extended action scenes that leave no room for an actual story structure. Overall, a very decent entry in the series.

[Steve Howells · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average Bolan book set in Iceland.