Assault on Soho

The Executioner #6

by Don Pendleton

Mack Bolan, Americas one-man army, rocks London in his war on the Mafia.

Genres: Thriller, Adventure, Fiction, Action, Suspense, Pulp

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

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

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Assault on Soho is everything you could want in a 70's-era men's adventure book. It has gun battles, blackmail schemes, kinky sex clubs, nightclubs with go-go dancers, and all-out war on the streets of London. In just forty hours, Bolan has more excitement and adventure than you could believe. Never a dull moment in this book. Simply an easy, quick-reading adventure.

Bolan, a Vietnam War sharpshooter comes back to the States in the earlier books in this series to find his family dead and ruined by the Mafia's cruel ways. Bolan, however, is a trained warrior and singlehandedly takes on the entire Mafia in a violent one-man war that would put even the Hulk to shame. This book catches Bolan simply stopping over in England on his way home from France and
immediately finds a greeting party waiting for him. Great book. Lot of fun to read.

[Edwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bolan is ambushed at the airpot by mobsters in London on his way back from his adventure in Paris and is rescued by a beautiful kinky sex club owner. The Mafia raises the price on Bolan's head and recruits an army of assassins and mobsters, including Bolan's friend and mob infiltrator Leo Turrin. Bolan fights for survival with the aid of the sex club owner all while solving a murder mystery and taking more vengeance on the mob. A fun read, albeit a bit wacky, and definitely incentive to keep reading the Executioner series.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently read the entire Ian Fleming James Bond series, and I have to say I do find some similarities between that series and this one. Especially this volume since it's set in London.

Overall this wasn't one of my favorite Mack Bolan novels. It involves a sex club and blackmail plot as well as the usual Mafia involvement and gunfights, but parts of this one came across as being lurid for the sake of being lurid. It wasn't overly graphic at all, but it just seemed to be an unwelcome interruption in the war against the mafia saga rather than an integral part of it.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another '71 entry in Pendleton's stories of the Mafia busting former Army sergeant, who started his quest after being sent home from Vietnam to bury his parents and younger sister. The family ended up on the wrong end of loan sharks and prostitution in the criminal underbelly of a Massachusetts gang.

This time, Bolan is traveling to England after escaping from France by the skin of his teeth. Much gunplay and mayhem ensue, as he tries to differentiate between friends and foes abroad.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pendleton was the best actual writer in the men's adventure genre by a wide margin. This one has all the action and other tropes you expect but written well which in this genre isn't always the case. Been rereading these and glad to see they are holding up.

Recommended, Executioner was the best of the genre at least as long as Pendleton was doing the writing.

[Doug Brunell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big Mack Bolan fan. The inspiration for the Punisher has always been solid in my book. This adventure, one of his earliest, is set in '70s London. A great deal of it centers around a sex club. That leads to some swingin' violent Mafia executing, naturally.

The Executioner series isn't about morals or philosophy. It's men's adventure, pure and simple. Big guns. Gorgeous girls. Alpha males. Breasts. They are quick reads meant to satisfy, and satisfy they do. My version was not the Kindle one, but the 1971 Pinnacle paperback in really ragged shape. I usually hate reading books that look like they are about to fall apart, but I bought a lot of these at a thrift store, so I wasn't going to toss it.

If you are a Bolan or Pendleton fan, this is mandatory. If you haven't checked out the series, but it sounds intriguing, do so. You won't be sorry.

[Viva · Rating 4 out of 5]

aka: More violence and sex in the old country.

This book is part of a long-running series of Mack Bolan the Executioner, vigilante extraordinaire against the US Mafia.

Spoiler: In this book, he lands in Dover and is immediately attacked. He is saved by a group unknown that takes him to a safe house. Meanwhile the US Mafia splits into 2 camps. One which offers an olive branch and position as their enforcer and the other headed by Arnie Farmer to keep trying to kill him. They send over Nick Trigger and Danno plus a shipload of rodmen to deal with Bolan. As usual, he manages to evade the local mafia and the local flatfoots as well as the local CID while managing to kill Farmer and helps solve a longstanding scam where S&M'ers and such are blackmailed over their S&M proclivities.

On to the next book of violence and sex!

[Kevin Findley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original Executioner novels are a guilty pleasure. They're not high brow, but they are insightful to what was going on in the country back then. They're also violent and fun to read in the same way as Spillane's Hammer novels. This excursion into England did the same for what was happening there with all of the political scandals that were in the news at that time.

Find 'em, read 'em, enjoy 'em!

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read an Executioner novel in years. I was surprised at how well written this one was. Mack Bolan is a very sympathetic character in this one, with a strong moral code. Pendleton injects the odd moment of philosophy amid all the mayhem, all without slowing the pace. A pleasant surprise, and I will be reading more of the early Bolan novels in the near future.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this sixth book of the Executioner, Mack Bolan, finds himself in a Sadomasochist club called the Museum De Sade. Thus, we have one of the more oddball Executioner books. Bolan is crossing over into England after last book ending on the French Rivera. He eventually wants to get back to America. After crossing into England, the mafia ambushes him and he just barely escapes. He is helped by a woman named Ann Franklin who works for the club. This begins another temptation for Bolan of getting involved with a woman, which he in theory swore off a few days earlier in the last book. Their relationship is a bit more tender in this book than what we have seen in previous books.

The real weirdness in this book is the goings on in the Museum De Sade. I guess this kind of sex club existed in the 1970’s in London, but Pendleton really goes into a lot of description of the decor. At one point Bolan is walking through a door that is shaped like a labia, which I guess symbolizes rebirth or something. The place is owned by a mysterious character called the Major, who wants to hire Bolan. For what purpose? It is not really mentioned until the end of the book, but it involves bribery of wealthy influential people and the mob trying to nose in on his territory. The subplot involving the Museum De Sade does give this story a little variety from the familiar tropes of Bolan eliminating a new arrogant mobster and his crew in creative ways (although there is still some old-fashioned mob slaying here).

Leo Turrin, the undercover cop who appeared in the first book, makes an appearance here. The mob brings him to London to broker a peace treaty. They offer to forgive Bolan and make him an enforcer. Right away, we know that Bolan will not accept this offer. This opens the door to the mafia not always agreeing on how to handle Bolan. Hopefully it leads to something better in future books.

There are at least two instances in this book where Bolan is saved through Ann’s help (the beginning ambush and the climax of the book). The last book, he swore off all help and declared himself a loner. Now, he finds himself alive because someone helped him. Where does this take the character? Will he be more open?

I did like this book as it was a bit different from the other books. However, it really didn’t add too much to the overall war against the mafia as the focus was on a localized affair in the Museum De Sade, which is resolved at the end of the book. There were a few named mobster deaths, but most survive this book. This makes the book somewhat of a filler episode feel but does give enough variety to make it interesting for me.

[Joe Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mack Bolan, fresh off the carnage in France, crosses the channel into merry old England in this, the sixth entry in the long-running series. And fortunately, it corrects some of the missteps from the previous volume, in my opinion.

The action throughout is good, with shootouts and trickery at every turn (Bolan getting a Mafia headhunting party to shoot at each other instead of him was a marvelous scene!), and a plot that proves to be more twisty than the usual "Find mob boss, proceed to kill" that the series is known for. In this instance, he is partnered with a British lady who runs a kinky sex club in the heart of London. Seems the American Mafia is blackmailing some big-time politicians with their BDSM games and now the scandal is poised to ruin a lot of lives.

This one features some of the strongest side characters yet, especially on the bad guy side of the coin, with returning villains Arnie "Farmer" Castiglione, and new threats Nick Trigger and Danno Giliamo. Less focus is on the police side of the Bolan hunt, which is a nice change of pace, though he does spend a good portion of the novel dancing around Scotland Yard.

Oh and it wouldn't be a Pendleton novel without the requisite female love interest (in less than six months, Mack Bolan has fallen in love more times than most romance novel protagonists) and this one at least has some semblance of personality. Ann is a girl with some secrets of her own.

The blend of action and espionage/mystery was actually quite appealing and Pendleton juggled both fairly well, even if the plot wasn't anything that would surprise even the most naïve of readers.

The only downside to this episode in the saga of Mack Bolan was that the end seemed rushed. We had a lot of crazy happen in the last chapter and some of it occurred "off-screen". The final showdown with the villain also felt hurried, with an elaborate deathtrap that even Blofeld would think too convoluted, but which only gets a few short paragraphs to exist.

A very good entry in the series and one Bolan Blitz that is worth not skipping over.

[ShanDizzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mack Bolan’s one man war against the Mafia began, as do so many larger wars, as an act of rage, frustration, and vengeance. Bolan himself has admitted this in his personal papers, and he makes no attempt to pose as a hapless victim of circumstances. “I knew what I was doing,” he states. “I was out to collect a blood debt from the outfit that destroyed my family. That’s all there was to it, at first. Then when my hate wore thin, I began to see that there was a lot more at stake than one man’s personal revenge. I stopped hating the enemy and began to understand them, and it became all the more important that I stand and fight to the bitter end. Someone has to stand up to these guys and show them that they are not God almighty. They are not trying to prove that they are: they believe that they are...I am doing what I have to do and all I know for sure is that when I stop fighting, I’ll also stop living. I don’t want to stop living with all these little gods still carving up the world into personal territories. I intend to go on fighting until my last breath, and I’m going to shake and rattle and bust that kingdom of evil with everything I have.”
Bolan expected no medals in this new war. He understood and accepted the fact that his actions could not be condoned by American society, and he felt no bitterness at becoming the nation’s most wanted “criminal.” He did, sometimes, feel very much alone. Warfare can be a lonely business for a one man army. Like any other man, he missed the warmth of human friendship and detested the feeling of utter isolation. Like any other man, he suffered the tensions of a constant balance between life and death … he knew fear, and anxiety, and pain, and revulsion and desperation … he had all the feelings of any normal man. But, in his words, Bolan had “built my own hell. I can live here, and I guess I can die here. Some things you just have to accept. It seems that I have a job to do, and I accept that. But I do not accept death—that is, I do not seek it."

[Curtis]

Of these first 6 books in the series, this one most resembles a James Bond story -- fittingly set in England. For the first time, Bolan doesn't just kill mobsters but investigates a mystery; there's intrigue, double crosses, the whole deal. One of the most distasteful similarities, though, is how Pendleton paints one the villains as monstrous because of his sexual "deviations" (i.e. he's gay), just like Diamonds Are Forever does, which coincidentally was released as a movie the same year this book was published. Only slightly less distasteful is the trope of sexualized virgin as Bolan's romantic interest, a la Live and Let Die.

Like the previous book, Bolan here is in a much more reactive position than usual. The introduction of the mystery element in the plot was a welcome addition because it gave him something to do besides just run from and murder bad guys.

Probably the best written book in the series so far. At this rate, I fully expect the final book (#38) to be the great American novel.

Regarding Bolan's decision at the end of book 5 to no longer endanger the lives of allies in his "war," Pendleton does address it early on but then sidesteps it by making Bolan's allies in this book solicit HIS help. So when they ultimately get tortured and killed, Bolan's conscience is clear. Neat little trick, Pendleton. Let's see what you do next...

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the fifth Executioner installment for providing something different in the form of an international adventure that makes good use of its setting. Pendleton followed that up with this one-man reverse British invasion, which is somewhat less interested in taking advantage of its surroundings. I guess there are some Swinging London elements to be found here, but that's about it as far as sightseeing goes.

Structurally, this is different from the previous Executioner books in that it's more like a mystery than the cat-and-mouse guerrilla warfare we've become accustomed to. It's also significantly more lurid than the typical Bolan jaunt. Pendleton tends to be fairly vague when it comes to torture and gore, but not so here.

This marks the end of Bolan's international adventures until book 16 (book 10, Caribbean Kill, takes place in Puerto Rico), and when he goes abroad later in the series, it's almost always in a position of control on a self-proclaimed mission. That makes this duo of international on-the-run adventures something of a novelty in the Bolan oeuvre: a path not taken.

[Writemoves · Rating 2 out of 5]

First book that I have read by the author and my first book from The Executioner series. I prefer the James Bond series written by Ian Fleming and others and The John Rain series by Barry Eisler. That being said, the book provided some escapism from the economics and history books that I have been predominately reading. I may try another book, maybe an earlier one in the series.

Mack Bolan is an interesting character but I did not find the story in this book particularly engrossing. Maybe John Wick has set a standard of action that I am seeking in a book.

[BlueMastiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Executioner finds his way to jolly ole England but it isn't so jolly. Upon his arrival he is greeted by the mob and the law as well as an ally hoping that they can help each other out, but things are not always as they seem. With typical Bolan style he blasts his way through the onslaught of mafioso leaving bodies in his wake.

Another good installment in the series that is worth checking out.

[J K Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple empty-calorie mind-candy. Normally, that's fine, but this installment just stopped more than it ended. Sure, it's a series, so a prompt to move you to the next book is expected, but this felt more like the author hit a word count, got tired of the work, and just stopped. That won't keep me from reading the next in the series, though. (I got the first ten or fifteen as a package deal and I'll read them all, though I probably won't read all 200+ in the overarching series.)

[Scott Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fiction , or inspiration ?

Our man should not be perfect , and although he is a villain , his view of his world needs to be alien to our personal reality . Having said that , it could prove useful in our futures that we recognize the possible need to defend our own rules of life . Mac is a fiction , but perhaps he might allow us to see that even as pawns in the game of life , we are the only ones keeping score on us , and we can be of use to right any wrong . Cheers

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slipping out of France to England, Bolan finds yet another trap set for him and an intriguing mystery. He’s helped to escape by members of a rather extreme sex club and learns that the mafia has gotten incriminating photos of their members and is using it to blackmail their way into power in England. Quite understandably, Bolan decides to stop that from happening. The only problem is, it’s not completely clear if all of the good guys are actually on his side.

[Kevin Dumcum · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only the fourth Mack Bolan book I have read, and the first one that tries to incorporate a mystery, as the proprietors of an S&M club contrive (how is never really explained) to bring Bolan to London, for reasons that they won’t say until the book is two-thirds over. Bolan’s confrontation with the Mafia continues to be interesting, but the mystery angle just doesn’t work.

[Kelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing addition in the series

What a disappointing installment in The Executioner series. Implausible and trashy. The best part going for it was that it developed Mack Bolan further as a character. And the book is a quick read. But the previous 5 books in this series were much better than this.

[Luke Sims-Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book six i found to be just okay. The last 50 pages elevated it. It was as if Pendleton had got himself into a corner about how to get Bolan back to that states and to move on with the series. The second half of the novel is much more focused and enjoyable.

[Bill Riggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Mack Bolan arrives in London he smells something rotten. Something even more overpowering than the stench of the mafia hanging over the city. The Executioner has his hands full as tracks the source and dodges multiple fronts of the Cosa Nostra through the dirty underbelly of early 70’s Soho.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Within every long-standing book series, there are titles that are hits and others that are Mrs.. This one was a miss for me. It has a really weird plot with really weird characters and really weird sexual content. Another words, it’s really weird.

[Duncan McCurdie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better Executioner books. There felt that an extra mystery element, some intrigue into how it would end and a bit of kink also helps. The London references were neat to see and the British slang was well done for an American writer.

[Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pendletonin Mack Bolan on suurta viihdyttävää taidetta. Tässäkin kirjassa tapahtuu lyhyessä ajassa kaikki, mitä hyvässä 70-luvun väkivaltaisessa seikkailussa pitää tapahtua. Paljon ampumista, vauhtia ja seksiä.
Mitä muuta sitä voisi mitenkään tarvita?

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in the 70s

[Patrick Whitehurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent entry, but I'm ready for Mack to get back to New York.

[Joel B Champagne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story

Nick Bolin once again foils the evil of the mafioso. Anther story with a sensible plot and a character set that makes sense.

[Paschalis]

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