Kill Squad

Although he was unaware of it at the time, this would be Mike Linaker's final contribution to the world of Mack Bolan. After the initial cancellation of 2015, he was informed that Kill Squad would be accepted but not be printed by Gold Eagle as the series would stop at the end of 2015. Later he was informed that his adventure would be published as the series had been given a lifeline. However, he was never invited to write another story for Gold Eagle for reasons that escaped him [it should be pointed out that he personally informed me of all of the above]. Kill Squad (the title is mentioned in the book as the name of a Mafia hit squad) is Carl Lyons final appearance in the Gold Eagle range. With the rest of the Stony Man teams fading away after Exit Strategy, Carl is given one more bite of the cherry as he rescues a hostage held by Mafia gangsters. Interestingly his first appearance was in Death Squad, so there is a kind of symmetry in leaving in Kill Squad. As for the story itself, Leo Turrin is shot while trying to get an accountant to pass information pertaining to a crime family in Las Vegas. Bolan flies into Vega to visit Turrin in the hospital, then for some reason flies all the way back to Stony Man Farm for a breifing before flying to Des Moines to pick up the mission. So lots of time wasted. What follows is Bolan and the mob gunners (the situation was that the Vegas branch were controlled by Russian gangsters in NYC, but this never really felt plausible) chase across the country in pursuit of the accountant resulting in a few gunfights where Bolan always has the upper hand. There was never a really challenge for Bolan, despite the "Kill Squad" claiming to be really good. Once the pursuit is over the story falls into the old cliché of the mob bosses fleeing to a mansion and waiting for Bolan to attack them. While I get the Vegas boss hiding there I did not understand why the Russian would join him. Why not simply return to NYC? It didn't make sense. Bolan shows up and kill all the bad guys and burns the mansion down. So, all in all, an average tale which was a walk in the park for Bolan and disappointing in the ending.

While always entertaining, this one seemed very similar to the last few by Linaker. Bolan must find a Mafia accountant on the run from his bosses who has a special list of misdeeds. Leo Turrin and Grimaldi get involved, Carl Lyons unleashes his fury, and Bolan must keep his charge alive amidst car chases, bullets flying and speeding trains. Nice read, just not as great as some of his others.

I would kill a basket full of kittens if every Executioner entry could be this good. Author Mike Linaker, one of the most popular Executioner writers, coolly captures the old-school feel of early Mack Bolan with a plot that finds our never-say-die hero lethally locking horns with the Mafia once again in his War Everlasting, and as usual, it's a take-no-prisoners approach. The guns come out and the bad guys perish, simple as that, because The Executioner shows mercy only to innocents, not his enemies. Even better, Linaker brings a welcome bloody edge to the violence, eschewing the sterilized, PG-13, "the target went down" style that seems so popular with latter-day Bolans in favor of more visceral action descriptions. Brains get blown out, bones shatter, blood spurts, and organs are pulverized, which in my useless opinion is the way it should be in action-adventure novels. Or maybe I'm just an unrepentant gore-hound... I've just recently resumed reading The Executioner series after a 20-year hiatus and just as I remembered from back in the day, they are hit-and-miss affairs. But entries as good as "Kill Squad" make me glad to once again call myself an Executioner fan.