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Mack Bolan the Executioner #44
Terrorist Summit
The daughter of a top U.S. hi-tech contractor had been kindnapped in Algiers - a classic terrorist act in broad daylight.
It looked like the girls father was about to give the perpetrators what they wanted: a low-yield nuclear device he had produced for the Pentagon. The Oval Office appealed to Mack Bolan to intercept the exchange and snap the trap shut on the vermin involved.
But events fast overtook even the horror of nuclear blackmail. The leader of the kidnappers, a diabolical American, had created a satanic alliance of terrorists, an international "war collegae" in the Sahara.
One way or another, Mack Bolan would have to kill them all.
It looked like the girls father was about to give the perpetrators what they wanted: a low-yield nuclear device he had produced for the Pentagon. The Oval Office appealed to Mack Bolan to intercept the exchange and snap the trap shut on the vermin involved.
But events fast overtook even the horror of nuclear blackmail. The leader of the kidnappers, a diabolical American, had created a satanic alliance of terrorists, an international "war collegae" in the Sahara.
One way or another, Mack Bolan would have to kill them all.
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
1 person is currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Don Pendleton
1,522 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
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 26, 2023
Ever since Bolan’s warpath veered away from the mafia and he started taking on more dangerous things like international terrorists, the entire Executioner series has changed trajectories to become extremely consistent and one of the most reliable sources of entertainment I can ever remember.
And that is made exceptionally true in Terrorist Summit” This is, up to this point in the series, and without a doubt, most violent, gory, action packed, mean spirited and all around most entertaining of the 45 books.
Author Steven M Krauzer understood the assignment and went full send, taking Bolan’s mission of vengeance to an extreme readers hadn’t seen yet, making this an easy 5 star entry in the executioner series and easily one of the best.
And that is made exceptionally true in Terrorist Summit” This is, up to this point in the series, and without a doubt, most violent, gory, action packed, mean spirited and all around most entertaining of the 45 books.
Author Steven M Krauzer understood the assignment and went full send, taking Bolan’s mission of vengeance to an extreme readers hadn’t seen yet, making this an easy 5 star entry in the executioner series and easily one of the best.
February 21, 2025
I’ve been trying to read a few weird genre books that I normally would never read, this is one from the older “men’s adventure” genre that I remember seeing in great numbers in used book stores when I was a kid. At around 180 pages of fairly large text it seemed like a quick read between books and it turned out to be the case, this only took a few ours to finish, thank God..
My expectations for this were very low, and it pretty much met those expectations. But what surprised me was not just how terribly absurd and cheesy the plot, characters, and dialogue were; I was suprised at how boring it was. So much of the book was spent referring to things that I could only assume occured to Mack Bolan in other books in the series, but without context they make no sense to someone like myself who didn’t read previous books. Worse, is the author’s habit of frequently meandering off to just talk about what bad ass Mack Bolan is in general and how the bad guys have no idea what’s in store for them. Or throwing out background information on the mob and terrorism in general that felt lifted from an encyclopedia or news story almost word for word, tons of this stuff reminding the reader that they are bad, but don’t worry because Mack Bolan will be bringing them to final justice. It felt like most of the book was a cheesy voiceover ad for itself. As a result very little actually occurs in each chapter in the first 3/4 of the book. If you cut out all the rambling nonsensical filler, you probably had about forty pages where anything, whether action or just dialogue, took place. It would still be terrible but at least my suffering would have been briefer.
The last 1/4 is pretty much all action. Cheesy, implausible, and horribly written, but it is the payoff for those who like this genre. I expect this is probably the formula for this series, and perhaps the whole genre, so those who read them probably anticipate it and enjoy the story knowing a payoff is coming. But there is no excitement because there is never any question that the hero, Bolan, will succeed. The author beats us over the head with that fact from the beginning, Mack Bolan is unstopable, and the plot never creates any real tension that he might fail. So bizarre.
The protaganist, Mack Bolan, is a caricature to the extreme. Truth, justice, and the American way, by method of slaughtering his adversaies in a fit of blood lust, and loving his job. The villains are one dimensional. There is one woman featured prominently in the book (a few others briefely described), she is the kidnap victim he is to rescue. Another caricature, she’s big breasted, smooth skinned, “high cheekboned” (of course), and we even learn the color of her pubic hair. And while we get scenes of her clinging to the hero’s taut muscles pressing her voluptuous body into his and wetting him with her tears of gratitude, he never takes advantage of her fragile state by seeking sex. So I guess he has that moral turpitude going for him, which actually surprised me, especially given the timeframe this series came from (this one was published in 1982).
It wasn’t hard to rate this 1/5 stars. Terrible writing, terrible plot, terrible characters, everything was terrible. I often wish Goodreads rating included a zero star option for books that are this bad, where not only is the story bad, but the writing and everything is done so poorly. Where the publisher clearly just doesn’t care, because its so full of filler and just childish writing, its clear little effort went in to it and I feel they are ripping off their readers. They could write novels of this genre that would have the same blood and guts action content, but would be better stories. These publishers (according to a note in this book) were putting out a book a month in this series. That focus, obviously a money grab, is reflected in the content. I’ve only read a handful of books, maybe two or three, that I would rate 0/5 stars if given the option. This joins that small group.
My expectations for this were very low, and it pretty much met those expectations. But what surprised me was not just how terribly absurd and cheesy the plot, characters, and dialogue were; I was suprised at how boring it was. So much of the book was spent referring to things that I could only assume occured to Mack Bolan in other books in the series, but without context they make no sense to someone like myself who didn’t read previous books. Worse, is the author’s habit of frequently meandering off to just talk about what bad ass Mack Bolan is in general and how the bad guys have no idea what’s in store for them. Or throwing out background information on the mob and terrorism in general that felt lifted from an encyclopedia or news story almost word for word, tons of this stuff reminding the reader that they are bad, but don’t worry because Mack Bolan will be bringing them to final justice. It felt like most of the book was a cheesy voiceover ad for itself. As a result very little actually occurs in each chapter in the first 3/4 of the book. If you cut out all the rambling nonsensical filler, you probably had about forty pages where anything, whether action or just dialogue, took place. It would still be terrible but at least my suffering would have been briefer.
The last 1/4 is pretty much all action. Cheesy, implausible, and horribly written, but it is the payoff for those who like this genre. I expect this is probably the formula for this series, and perhaps the whole genre, so those who read them probably anticipate it and enjoy the story knowing a payoff is coming. But there is no excitement because there is never any question that the hero, Bolan, will succeed. The author beats us over the head with that fact from the beginning, Mack Bolan is unstopable, and the plot never creates any real tension that he might fail. So bizarre.
The protaganist, Mack Bolan, is a caricature to the extreme. Truth, justice, and the American way, by method of slaughtering his adversaies in a fit of blood lust, and loving his job. The villains are one dimensional. There is one woman featured prominently in the book (a few others briefely described), she is the kidnap victim he is to rescue. Another caricature, she’s big breasted, smooth skinned, “high cheekboned” (of course), and we even learn the color of her pubic hair. And while we get scenes of her clinging to the hero’s taut muscles pressing her voluptuous body into his and wetting him with her tears of gratitude, he never takes advantage of her fragile state by seeking sex. So I guess he has that moral turpitude going for him, which actually surprised me, especially given the timeframe this series came from (this one was published in 1982).
It wasn’t hard to rate this 1/5 stars. Terrible writing, terrible plot, terrible characters, everything was terrible. I often wish Goodreads rating included a zero star option for books that are this bad, where not only is the story bad, but the writing and everything is done so poorly. Where the publisher clearly just doesn’t care, because its so full of filler and just childish writing, its clear little effort went in to it and I feel they are ripping off their readers. They could write novels of this genre that would have the same blood and guts action content, but would be better stories. These publishers (according to a note in this book) were putting out a book a month in this series. That focus, obviously a money grab, is reflected in the content. I’ve only read a handful of books, maybe two or three, that I would rate 0/5 stars if given the option. This joins that small group.
June 14, 2021
Mack Bolan is still a class act military strategist & warrior. He does what needs to be done so that the bullies do not take over and cause incalculable chaos.
September 25, 2022
Closer to a 3.5, Krauzer has a tendency to ape Pendleton's style to much and go back in time bringing up old exploits too often. He did this in the one he wrote before this one as well. However he does have a good grasp of the Bolan character and the story is a good one. Bolan is sent to Algiers to rescue a weapons expert who was lured to captured because of the kidnapping of his daughter. Once rescued he asked Bolan to save his daughter too, when Bolan investigates he realises that she is in the middle of a desert compound that is being used as a meeting place for all the terrorist groups you can think of. Seems some madman, thinking he was going to get his hands on a new nuke device from the weapons expert, brought all of the groups together to sell the device. Only problem was he didn't have it and Bolan had found his party.
Recommended, it is a solid tale and even has some role camouflage that Bolan was so good at during his mafia battles.
Recommended, it is a solid tale and even has some role camouflage that Bolan was so good at during his mafia battles.
January 30, 2023
Good book of espionage and kidnapping. Getting ahead of terrorism and underground plots against united states'and world governments
November 21, 2023
This made so little sense while also having almost some of the least plausible action ever.
As the series goes on, Mack Bolan is basically a warrior poet, who belongs in MENSA, while being the greatest tactical mind to ever live. Hard to take it seriously.
As the series goes on, Mack Bolan is basically a warrior poet, who belongs in MENSA, while being the greatest tactical mind to ever live. Hard to take it seriously.
May 6, 2015
My Rating Scale:
1 Star - Horrible book, It was so bad I stopped reading it. I have not read the whole book and wont
2 Star - Bad book, I forced myself to finish it and do NOT recommend. I can't believe I read it once
3 Star - Average book, Was entertaining but nothing special. No plans to ever re-read
4 Star - Good Book, Was a really good book and I would recommend. I am Likely to re-read this book
5 Star - GREAT book, A great story and well written. I can't wait for the next book. I Will Re-Read this one or more times.
Times Read: 1
One of the first series I read consistently. This series and the Destroyer series are responsible for my love of reading and stories.
Characters - Looking back to my younger reading days, I loved Mack Bolan and thought he was one of the coolest characters in history. 30 years later, I realize that the characters were pretty stereotypical, but I still love him.
Story - The stories are average and fairly typical. Bad guys going to kill or hurt, Mack is going to kill them or die trying. Not much in creativity but it really worked for me as a male teenager. I wanted to own guns and protect the world just like Mack.
Overall - I started reading these when I was 16. I enjoyed them up until about age 19. My tastes changed from Military intrigue to Fantasy / SciFi. I would recommend reading these especially for younger males.
NOTE: I am going to rate these all the books in this series the same. Some of the stories are a bit better or a bit worse but I can't find one that I would rate a 2 or 4.
1 Star - Horrible book, It was so bad I stopped reading it. I have not read the whole book and wont
2 Star - Bad book, I forced myself to finish it and do NOT recommend. I can't believe I read it once
3 Star - Average book, Was entertaining but nothing special. No plans to ever re-read
4 Star - Good Book, Was a really good book and I would recommend. I am Likely to re-read this book
5 Star - GREAT book, A great story and well written. I can't wait for the next book. I Will Re-Read this one or more times.
Times Read: 1
One of the first series I read consistently. This series and the Destroyer series are responsible for my love of reading and stories.
Characters - Looking back to my younger reading days, I loved Mack Bolan and thought he was one of the coolest characters in history. 30 years later, I realize that the characters were pretty stereotypical, but I still love him.
Story - The stories are average and fairly typical. Bad guys going to kill or hurt, Mack is going to kill them or die trying. Not much in creativity but it really worked for me as a male teenager. I wanted to own guns and protect the world just like Mack.
Overall - I started reading these when I was 16. I enjoyed them up until about age 19. My tastes changed from Military intrigue to Fantasy / SciFi. I would recommend reading these especially for younger males.
NOTE: I am going to rate these all the books in this series the same. Some of the stories are a bit better or a bit worse but I can't find one that I would rate a 2 or 4.
October 8, 2014
Lots of action and here Bolan get rid of lots of terrorists.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews