Blast Radius

Another whirlwind action-fest from Rogers, which has Bolan and Gary Manning trying to recover stolen nukes. A lot of different factions are involved. Russian and Finnish gangsters, Chinese operatives (one being a Chinese giant) and American businessmen as the main villains. The high points were the set pieces involving a submersible with tank tracks and a wild chase that puts it into oncoming street traffic. Bolan goes into classic sniper mode near the end as he goes toe-to-toe with the bad guys on the frozen tundra. Capped off by a blistering assault on an oil platform. As is Rogers' custom, Bolan gets battered and bloodied to the max.

Well it is a nuke of the month story but if you can get over that and give this one a go you will find an entertaining title to read. Probably my major criticism with this title is a lack of story and plot as the title just seems to be one long action scene after another. Don't get me wrong there are some wonderful scenes to read within this one but some of them just go on and on and on the chase scene around the mountain highway a case in point. Some good characters introduced and a pretty good finish gave it an extra star.

OK this was my first entry into the The Executioner series. This was a good place to start for sure. I deffinitely liked the spin they put on it throwing in Chinese Special Purpose troops. And like someone said before me the shootout at the lodge was great, as well as the shootout underwater, a new spin on Bolan's run of the mill shootouts. The best part was the way this just kept me hanging on as every chpter ended in a clff hanger, a work of Bolan art Mr. Rogers.

This book reads like a James Bond movie script, so it's pretty good. There is travel, exotic locales, and lots of fights. Oh yeah, Mack hooks up with a babe too. The villian is heavy into martial arts, so I was expecting a big fight scene, but no luck. What I like is the guest appearances by some Stony Man Farm warriors.

Good, fast-paced read, very enjoyable. This is a pretty good twist on the meglomaniac scenario, but as someone else mentioned, this really doesn't take place in the Arctic Circle as much as it does in several Scandavian-region locations. I don't always enjoy Chuck Rogers's work, but this is definitely one of his better ones.

I must again give full scores to Mr Rogers for this book. I enjoyed this on even more than Savage Game. The axehandle action in middle of book was just great. I have to say that Bolan and Manning were bit unlucky in this story for ending up in place in Finland without any mobilephones. For fact there are 5 million citizens in Finland and more than 10 million active mobilephones in Finland. I also liked the fact that Bolan tried and evaded most of the useless shootout. The scene in Icelandic hunting lodge is quite memorable. There were some uneveness between story parts but it did not bother me much. If I have to nag about something then it is this very little of action actually takes place in arctic circle so cover of book is bit missleading also Finland and Iceland are not part of Scandinavian penisula Norway and Sweden are.