Devils Bargain

Goodness me I thought #98 was bad well welcome to #100 folks and it is a SHOCKER!!! Did anyone at any time in the publishing company leading up to the release of this title think to themself "hey we have entry 100 on this series coming up should we do something?" If they did and even mentioned it to someone who cared it was wasted breath and fair dinkum coupled with "Splatterpunk " and the pink easter bunny ears this is the biggest load of crap I have read in 700 plus titles. Like #98 covert black ops and of course they all have cute nicknames this time orientated towards the Devil and Hell's Gate etc. so yep cool, of course they are all Stone Cold Killers so enter stage right......... Alpha Deep Six Been off the map ten years apparently after staging their deaths and make a come back by first kidnapping Price? Why? Doesn't matter as she is hardly mentioned throughout the book? Why? Because it only involves a crap ending section featuring her. So what is the title about without giving anything much away is normally what I am thinking when typing these reviews but not here. GROSS OVER THE TOP RIDICULOUS ULTRA VIOLENT DESCRIPTIONS OF BODIES BEING EXPLODED APART! Alpha Deep Six with information of the Islamic Bank who they are going to raid decide to unleash Red Crescent terrorists who they have formed over the last decade to unleash terrorist attacks in US cities. WHY? To mask and take attention away from themselves whilst the attack the Islam Bank which is in the sewer section of somewhere Turkey I think? Huh? Okay so these guys have over the last ten years financed a HUGE terrorist network including Biological weapons that they have at their beck and call. The author goes into delirious descriptions of MASSIVE BODY DAMAGE rivers of blood, body parts flying left right and centre which gets very tedious after not a long time. The attack on the underground bank is laughable I think there was 76 or 78 terrorists guarding it at the start if you read this crap you would think Alpha Deep Six kills 5,000 plus to get to the prize. These guys waltz through HUNDREDS OF FLYING LEAD projectiles without a scratch blowing away dozens upon dozens of defenders. AND WHAT HAPPENS ? I won't even comment further on this pile of garbage except to say.... The model on the front and back covers upper chest area was a small consolation for even opening this title. Do so at your own risk.

This book could've been so much more than it was, especially given the significance of its number. There was a lot of good plot--the diversion of the transportation explosions, the kidnapping of "a Stony Man operative," and some pretty bad-ass bad guys ... but there's so much time spent on the bad guys' point of view that when we finally see Bolan in action, the action seems sparse. Where's the big showdown? Where are the cool fight scenes between Bolan and the main guy? Ka-blam, ka-blam, that's about it. Granted, that might be more realistic, but if I wanted realistic, I wouldn't be reading Mack Bolan. Don't get me wrong, I don't want Bolan-Superman either ... and he does have some cool interrogation scenes ... but when the rubber meets the road, this book suffers from quite an underwhelming climax.

A great book, but two words come to mind - Tom Clancy - this really reminded me of one of his books, the way the action jumps back and forth all over the place. Of course minus about 900 pages of painful description - there have been a few books by this author that I didn't enjoy too much , but this one was well worth it. It kicked some serious ass - and that hot blonde babe on the cover - man o man, she's fine ! Eh Kay says check Her out - and the book too.

First part of this book was excellent, Bolan is hard pressed to stop multible waves of terror. Then story chages Barb got abducted and we got mini story involving heists of two banks of Islam. Alpha deep six were really Evil villains yet they were little match for Mack. So I was bit disappointed that: 1 too little action involvin Mack and 2 final showdown was anticlimatic.

I just couldn't get into this book. It was written in a way that I just couldn't follow what was going on. Maybe some day I'll pick it back up & finish it, but it just did not float my boat. I have read better books than this one, that's for sure.

The is a top-notch Super Bolan adventure. As usual, Dan Schmidt brings to life some truly memorable bad men - in this case members of a super secret, super elite covert force code named Alpha Deep Six. Long thought dead, this band of hard cases rises again from the ashes to attempt the biggest bank heist in world history (and in the process putting the world in a continuous state of chaos and war). The team leader, Crammon (all the Alpha team members are named after death-dealers and demons from mythology and religion), makes a terrible mistake, though: Barbara Price, Stony Man’s Mission Controller, is kidnapped for use as a bargaining chip. . What I love about a Schmidt adventure is the scribe always thinks big and isn't afraid to put forth some over the top writing and characterization. My favorite Alpha team members were Thor, the axe-yielding juggernaut that in one thrilling sequence puts Jihad suicide bombers to shame; and Chambliss, the ex-Marine sniper with the exposed head plate, carrying enough physical and physiological scars for ten Greek tragedies. There are several interesting elements that make this one a winner. First - the storming of the "Bank of Islam" is one of the best prolonged action sequences in recent memory, and the destruction of the Islamic cities jumps of the pages with a Biblical weight. Second – Barbara Price gets to stretch out of her mission controlling role a bit, making her into more of a rounded character. One of the strengths of the Bolan series in general is that Price has never been relegated to simply Mack’s "Miss Monypenny," and here she really gets to shine. And lastly, Mack is not in every scene dealing death. In fact, the best action scenes in the book, Mack is elsewhere, trying to catch up. I found this kind of a nice change-up. While Mack should never, ever be a "sensitive" or "vulnerable" character, it was nice to see him slightly less super-human.

The book starts out very much like Dan Schmidt's Doomsday trilogiy from Executioners #s 284-286, with Bolan rushing around trying to stop crazed terrorists from causing mass destruction on America's mass transit lines. About halfway in this book really kicks into high gear. The rouge black ops agents of Alpha Team Six lead an assault on "the Bank of Islam" . Its evil fighting evil in a bullet frenzied slaughterfest. The only real downside to this book is that our hero Bolan is not involed with the story's best sequences, and is left to pretty much just clean up the after math of the warring terrorist.