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Mack Bolan the Executioner #83
Missouri Deathwatch
A Mafia hit team is trying to gain control of St. Louis. The Executioner is only too aware that if the attack succeeds, it would be a major setback in his everlasting war.
Mack Bolan returns to the Missouri killground to settle an ancient blood debt. And the leader of the hit crew and his Black Ace - one of the brotherhoods assassination elite- are marked for death.
Mack Bolan returns to the Missouri killground to settle an ancient blood debt. And the leader of the hit crew and his Black Ace - one of the brotherhoods assassination elite- are marked for death.
189 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1985
39 people want to read
About the author
Don Pendleton
1,517 books188 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 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 6, 2022
Bolan is in St. Louis, yeah. The Executioner is rolling through the River City, sure. St. Louis is where the Hell ground is. And where the Hell ground is, you'll find Boland, right. St. Louis is that Hell ground. Boland is either going to live, and live large or die. In St. Louis. Boland fights cannibal man in St. Louis. Where he will live or die.........
Sorry, but you get the picture of what the first 100 plus pages are like in this dud. The author is one of my favorite Bolan writers. And favorite action writers, Mike Newton. For some odd reason, Mike called this one in and sleep late. He foregoes the action at every turn to have Bolan go on a lengthy dialogue about the evil of men and his task of killing or being killed by them. We know the background. Ferret the baddies out and blast 'em. We're not on any cultural exploration into the mind of men. Unfortunately, that's pretty much what we get.
When there is actual action. Not much, but when there is. We get some nice set pieces. It does not equal things up though. To give you a better picture of things, to me, just imagine Bolan in the heat of battle. Guns raging. Flesh tearing and then the lights go out. Then a single spotlight shines on our hero, The Executioner. Everything stops but him. He slowly looks up. Stares into space and goes on and on about why he does the things he has to do. Ad Nauseam.
Sorry, but you get the picture of what the first 100 plus pages are like in this dud. The author is one of my favorite Bolan writers. And favorite action writers, Mike Newton. For some odd reason, Mike called this one in and sleep late. He foregoes the action at every turn to have Bolan go on a lengthy dialogue about the evil of men and his task of killing or being killed by them. We know the background. Ferret the baddies out and blast 'em. We're not on any cultural exploration into the mind of men. Unfortunately, that's pretty much what we get.
When there is actual action. Not much, but when there is. We get some nice set pieces. It does not equal things up though. To give you a better picture of things, to me, just imagine Bolan in the heat of battle. Guns raging. Flesh tearing and then the lights go out. Then a single spotlight shines on our hero, The Executioner. Everything stops but him. He slowly looks up. Stares into space and goes on and on about why he does the things he has to do. Ad Nauseam.
April 27, 2024
Generally speaking, I enjoy what Mike Newton did for the Executioner books. Like Timothy Dalton who played James Bond for just one film, Newton was the author who clearly wrote Bolan’s character as closer to Don Pendleton’s original version than any other author seemed to be able to achieve.
And yet, with “Missouri Deathwatch”, Newton’s streak of really good stories starts to decline. It’s not a huge drop off as series doesn’t go totally off a cliff, however this 83rd entry into the ongoing series just doesn’t really do anything incredibly exciting or new.
Bolan is back in Missouri, tying up some lose ends from his previous mafia destroying excursion into the state, and there are a few returning characters from other books by Newton, so there is a familiarity here that makes this feel like part of a continual stay arc.
The issue is that everything Bolan does and all the mafia dons he encounters have been done and seen before. The mafia is bad and does bad things. Bolan is good and does good things. There’s the usual interworkings of mafia politics that are repeated with nearly every one of these entries and of course Bolan always ends up at the very end, blowing up all the antagonists with some truly explosive firepower and cunning execution, riding off into the proverbial sunset as a conquering hero.
Don’t get me wrong, these books early truly disappoint, but it’s become so extremely formulaic that you can pretty much speed read through these and not miss a single important or series altering event.
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: this series really excels when Bolan takes a break from his personal vendetta against the Sicilian brotherhood and takes on egotistical world terrorists instead.
And yet, with “Missouri Deathwatch”, Newton’s streak of really good stories starts to decline. It’s not a huge drop off as series doesn’t go totally off a cliff, however this 83rd entry into the ongoing series just doesn’t really do anything incredibly exciting or new.
Bolan is back in Missouri, tying up some lose ends from his previous mafia destroying excursion into the state, and there are a few returning characters from other books by Newton, so there is a familiarity here that makes this feel like part of a continual stay arc.
The issue is that everything Bolan does and all the mafia dons he encounters have been done and seen before. The mafia is bad and does bad things. Bolan is good and does good things. There’s the usual interworkings of mafia politics that are repeated with nearly every one of these entries and of course Bolan always ends up at the very end, blowing up all the antagonists with some truly explosive firepower and cunning execution, riding off into the proverbial sunset as a conquering hero.
Don’t get me wrong, these books early truly disappoint, but it’s become so extremely formulaic that you can pretty much speed read through these and not miss a single important or series altering event.
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: this series really excels when Bolan takes a break from his personal vendetta against the Sicilian brotherhood and takes on egotistical world terrorists instead.
April 10, 2021
How can I not read a book with this title?
These books are like watching an old action movie with your uncle: fun violent shoot-outs punctuated by rants about gross philosophy.
You can tell that the Bolan ghostwriters were trying to punch things up more in the 80's, as this is far more violent than any of the older 70's stuff. That's good: you're hear for action, and the action is good.
The villains are back to being the mafia, which I never found very exciting. A lot of the characters seem to be reoccurring, but I'm worried for the person who gets excited when a side character from The Executioner #17, "Foreigner Firearm Fiesta", shows up.
These novels are the text versions of action movies, but those movies were subtle. You might think that Death Wish and Cobra have all the political nuance of a brick bat, but that's only because you haven't read a Mack Bolan novel. There's a scene here where a cop thanks Bolan for killing hundreds of bad guys because things like due process and miranda rights only exist to let criminals rape and murder young white women. It makes the subtext of those movies bright and bold. Imagine a Bond novel where aside from just dominating women, 007 also stumps for Regan. It's almost funny.
These books are like watching an old action movie with your uncle: fun violent shoot-outs punctuated by rants about gross philosophy.
You can tell that the Bolan ghostwriters were trying to punch things up more in the 80's, as this is far more violent than any of the older 70's stuff. That's good: you're hear for action, and the action is good.
The villains are back to being the mafia, which I never found very exciting. A lot of the characters seem to be reoccurring, but I'm worried for the person who gets excited when a side character from The Executioner #17, "Foreigner Firearm Fiesta", shows up.
These novels are the text versions of action movies, but those movies were subtle. You might think that Death Wish and Cobra have all the political nuance of a brick bat, but that's only because you haven't read a Mack Bolan novel. There's a scene here where a cop thanks Bolan for killing hundreds of bad guys because things like due process and miranda rights only exist to let criminals rape and murder young white women. It makes the subtext of those movies bright and bold. Imagine a Bond novel where aside from just dominating women, 007 also stumps for Regan. It's almost funny.
October 6, 2022
This book is almost like a re-play or do-over of one of the original Pendleton War-on-the-Mafia Executioner novels (#23 St. Louis Showdown). In some ways it's an update on some unfinished aspects from the previous book, in other ways it parallels the original plot. This makes for an interesting story for anyone who's read the original, especially since that book, and this one, feature Bolan protecting a weak, mediocre, aging Mob boss against an out-of-town takeover by more ambitious and dangerous up-and-comers. This is rather different from his normal anti-Mafia blitzes, or his selective Capo assassinations. It plays more into his occasional play to get various mob factions into full-on war with each other, but in this case slightly (but not strongly) favouring one side. It works fine as a stand-alone novel, but if you've read the original, this serves to tie up some loose ends and provide a bit more closure and bookend it. Worth having in a Mack Bolan collection.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews