3.5 stars
In my review of the previous Executioner novel, I claimed I wanted Bolan to stop with his mafia blitzkrieg and take on despotic terrorists. Well, thankfully, that does happen in ?Fastburn.
Feeling more along the lines of a Clive Cussler novel, this one deposits Mack Bolan in the middle of China, racing against the Chinese and the ever present Russians to stop the acquisition of an old WW2 bioengineered virus, capable of destroying both the Soviet Union and America alike. There’s a lot to like here. James Lord doesn’t mess around with a lot of Bolan’s self-congratulatory inner monologue and instead throws us right into the action. There’s a good mix of characters. The climactic final act is a lot of fun. And this one feels a lot more like a decently budgeted testosterone fueled film from the era.
The problem though is that while Lord can write a fast paced story, he jumps around so many times with various plots and bad guys with similar names and details that things get confusing. The location of the ice caves of Harbin also left me lost more than once as each new area felt similar to the last.
This was a nice break from the mafia wars but I’m still waiting for another straight up banger like Crude Kill and Savannah Swingsaw.