Death Force

This was my second Dan Schmidt Bolan adventure and have to say I'm not impressed. The stereotypical "white hate" theme is a little annoying and while the action scenes aren't too bad, Schmidt falls prey to my personal pet peeve, referring to a gun magazine as a "clip". Mike newton and Jerry van Cook are at the top of my list for using proper gun nomenclature (which makes sense for JVC as he was a former police officer and also a firearms enthusiast writing for a number of gun and knife publications). The villain was a bit cliche and a bit unbelievable, don't think someone that unstable would have made it as far as he did! The main thing I didn't care for was the rather needless firefight at the White house at the end. Seemed as though the author rushed to get it over with. From now on I'm going to stick with the authors I prefer.

This is a better book than most reviews might indicate. But there are points made that I agree with. The final scene should have been wrapped up at the landing strip rather than the suicide run the main villain, Bannon, made with the remnants of his forces. Bannon was a typical Schmidt badguy, interchangeable with other main villains used in some of his other novels. The book was short, over before you knew it, like it was a 188 page story stretched to fit a 224 page format. This was not your typical hunt down the badguy head honcho down to his lair and assault his compound story, which was a positive break from the norm. Here Bolan stumbles on something bad while on R and R near a small town in nowhere, Colorado. Bolan has face to face confrontations with Bannon throughout the story. Great scenes these. The body count is surprisingly low for a Schmidt novel, the build up of discovering what is going on, and the acquiring of surprising allies on the way make for good reading as the story moves forward to the expected firestorm of bloodshed when Bolan has his confrontation with Bannon and his forces in the town square. Not bad of an outing for Bolan here, while not among the best of Executioner titles, this is a worthwhile read in my opinion, and can be read in a short time.

Gary Bannon has to be one of the most stupid criminal masterminds ever to be featured in an Executioner novel. It is also very fitting that he commands a rural hate group. Insanity laced with bouts of anger has crippled his fragile hold of reality. He also has an inferiority complex that threatens his own idiotic plans. Inexplicably, Bannon is also a former FBI agent. “Death Force” is a quick and dirty novel where Bolan stumbles across a hate town in Colorado. The main hate group has two operations on tap. One of the things I’ve learned from Tom Clancy novels is, “Never name an operation after any element of your plan, use a random word generator.” True to character, Bannon didn’t do that. Anyone can guess the operations Bannon had in mind from his codenames alone: Operation Whitewater Death (keep in mind this novel was published in 1996) and Operation [name of town] Armageddon. The plot of the novel is short, but it moved along. The ending was very weak, a lame firefight at an airfield and a tacked on ending that smelled like a deadline. I did like the interactions Bolan had with the state and local law agencies. The hostage exchange was the highlight of the novel. Bolan was true to character, but there was nothing new to this adventure. Average, tainted with a weak ending, it seemed like a writing exercise. And to me, a reading exercise.

I pretty much agree with the previous reviews. I kept on asking myself about the plot/story line and came up lacking on the believable side. I also agree the font size and margins make this yet another half a book in the series but in this case it is probably a good thing. The final scenes of the attack on the Whitehouse are tedious and very unbelieveable which possibly relates to the whole book. Disappointing.

A good story, though it did seem as if it's been done before. I would have enjoyed this more had the ending not been so quick. Either have a longer fight in washington or end the book at the airport scene.

A very ordinary by-the-numbers Schmidt novel. Not bad but not good either just a 5. This has nothing to do with the review but the cover makes Mack look like such a metrosexual. How much did that hair cut cost? Sheesh. Bannon a very typical radical leader/mercenary. Although he wasn't really a mercenary. Bannon is a fairly typical Schmidt villian. An ambitious single-minded ruthless likes to kill his own men kind of villian. I did think though that Bannon was the type of villian that Timothy McVeigh would have routed for. Also like most merc's Schmidt writes about Bannon and crew are all exgovernment workers ie federal agents, military, cops etc. Bannon's speech to Mack about how this country went to hell in a handbasket from the civil rights era is so typical right wing/militia crapola. Schmidt did nail this character right. But then there have been better written right-wing fanatics like Bannon. The American Trilogy even though a lousy trilogy the main character in book one was fairly better written. Dawson was a good character. As a state trooper he wanted to do the right thing but was in over his head. I also liked Little Joe and his friend. Two men that were outcasts due to bigotry yet wanted to save their town. Heroes I doubt if the town would ever appreciate them. About American Indians Schmidt's first novel which also had Indians was a far better novel and also book 188 was also a far better novel. The print was huge and if it was normal sized an ending could have been written. Way too fast but honestly at this point I didn't care. The book should have ended at the airport outside of Honor. Instead of that quick Washington fight. Mack uses Belasko quite a bit wouldn't one think that name would be very common amongst the criminal elements? Oh well. Very ordinary.

The book started out as an explosive one with Bolan walking by chance into shoot out between the Colorado law inforcement and a few members of Right Hand Of God. After this the books continues through almost non-stop action with Bolan and few of his friends fighting members of the Right Hand Of God on various battle grounds. During this Bolan finds a small town that is being threated by a bunch of extremists who want to change America for good due to personal rage and thirst for power. The book was build up step by step for a final explosive scene between Bolan and the extremits but sadly the end of the book was a stupid and badly written "suicide" attack on the White House as that attack was too short to serve as the great finale it really could have been. The lousy ending really damages this other wise good book and left me stunned and confused as it would only have taken a bit more effort to finish this book differently and thus make it a cohesive one as the material and the moment was there. It ust lacked the final distance to make it a great one. What a pity!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i sooo wanted to give this one a 10 but the ending killed it. here we come to law (if my memory serves me correct) the white house back to the stone age. two paragraphs later the book is done. the whole book, and it ends gay.

The action explodes from the print that is so large that you could read it from the other side of a basball stadium. A standard A Team style story of finding a hick town being threated by the bad guys. The shootouts were good, though. The ending attack on the White House was not needed at all and spoiled the story. It would have been far better to have Bolan finish the bad guys on the airfield instead of him sitting in a car for four days.

THE VERBAL CONFRONTATION BETWEEN BOLAN AND BANNION RULED, BOLAN AT HIS TOUGHEST. THE ENDING WAS KIND OF CHEESY THOUGH.

typical mack bolan vs. fanatics. still pretty good though. to bad mack never made it to his vacation.

This one had some good action sequences, but I thought the suicide run on the White House(I think), was pretty silly. Overall, not the best from Schmidt, but I enjoyed it.