Helldust Cruise

I'm very new to the series. I will admit that I was turned on to these types of books by a very and I mean VERY cheesy movie by the title of Jake Speed (I know, I know). But after reading the first couple of chapters I was hooked, and I mean H-O-O-K-E-D. Couldn't put it down in fact. So absorbed into the story that I'm pretty sure if someone looked inside my head they'd see explosions going off and dirt flying everywhere (I love it when I story sucks me in like that). I'm going to keep my eye out for more books, as since this is #143, I have 142 more books to read so I get the references and then the books that follow. Lucky for me I have a long commute to work.

The book starts with a band following with a great intriguing mystery and a lot of promises yet as the book progressed and the action was turned over to the ship the book started to slip a bit For some strange reason Bolan´s sixth sense has been deactivated in the book when he follows blindly his former brother in arms from Vietnam without doing some background check on the guy. I kind of felt Bolan was loosing his touch in this book being a puppet on a string for an “old buddy” from Nam who has unexplained wealth and power which doesn´t strike Bolan as odd. One thing struck me as odd. Bolan was in Mannering´s mind a lawyer from New York get Mannering didn´t find it odd how a “lawyer” could handle himself in combat and handle all sorts of weapons and situations time and time again. The plot did have some nice twists and turns with a maze of betrayal and double crossing around the corner but still I can´t help but feeling that the author could have used these ingredients a bit more in order to make the book more solid one. The book is a mixed bag suspenseful scenes and dull average and badly written shoot out scenes but still there is the mystery of who´s who and who´s double crossing who though it was rather obvious who was the bad guy and in reality Bolan´s target of elimination. This is how the cookie crumbles........so to speak. (Iceland – 2007)

This is pretty ordinary be warned. Once again we have an author depicting Mack totally devoid of his character (come on guys ? ) Mack is portrayed as stupid and as a follower and surprise surprise the guy he is "following/helping/assisting" is the bad guy ???? come on ........... my two bobs worth..........

Leslie is overall one of the worst Executoner novelists. Books 90 and especially Hong Kong Kit List ranks in my really awful list. This novel was actually better then the two above but not by much. Mack was an idiot in this novel. He teamed up with this rich American landowner in South American who just happnes to be alive with a drug killings all amongst him - he ran SAFE an enti-drug private orginization. Mack doesn't suspect Mannering is the bad guy. He takes Mannerings word that undercover cops they just killed were dirty. Sure he gets a little upset but he continues working with Mannering. Actually all the main characters are stupid. Mannering didn't bother killing Mack when Mack's usefulness is over. Why he put on the charade when the terrorists came to question him I don't know. He should have said that Belasko has served his purpose so shoot him. Ortiz when he had Mack with the guards aiming guns at Mack played around to get Mack stoned and addicted to drugs like he saw in a movie. Lets see you try to stop Mack before even captured him twice and the first time he escaped so what do you do the second time? Shoot him pronto? Nope. Talk to him so he can formulate plans to escape? Yes. The boat scene with Mack trying to destroy the drugs was good and very well written. Leslie is good at descriptions of places. Overall just a 6.

Another nonstop intrigue filled adventure from Leslie, as Bolan finds himself teaming up with a man who is going after the Colombia drug smugglers. And twists and turns in the plot keeps this story full of surprises. The action starts in Columbia, and on to Venezuala and eventualy to some Islands in the Caribbean. Things are not what they seem, and Bolan is stuck in a maze of double and triple crossing drug lords. I liked the suspenseful scenes aboard the hijacked cruise ship, with Bolan moving through the passages, and hiding in a locker with terrorists moving about all around him. A good mixture of mystery and suspense and gunfights make this an enjoyable adventure to read, too bad this was the last Executioner Leslie wrote, I will miss reading his stories.

Bolan heads to South America to investigate the death of an investigator. He bounces in and out of trouble and winds up with an ally. Together, they board a cruise ship that ends up being hijacked. Blehh. This one ends up being too predictable and unsatisfying. Bolan's allies end up dying without Bolan helping out. There are huge plot holes that get summed up as, "Well, I guess we'll never know why that happened?" The twist is easy to spot long before Bolan does. Bolan spends much of this novel moving ineptly from place to place. Only the originality of the cruise ship setting saves "Helldust Cruise" from being a total letdown.

A good Bolan story with plenty of action and intrigue.

A GOOD ONE. NICE SUPRISE TWIST ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH THAT MAKES THE SILENT SUSPENSE JUST SCREAM OUT.

A great, Die Hard-like plot, with a lot of action. I really liked it.