Mark Ellis

Well, okay--Doug invited a colostomy to be performed on him for perpetrating "Blood Trade" on the action-adventure readers of America, so out comes my scalpel and bag. First off, why does "Blood Trade" have such a strong moralistic thread running through it instead of the usual neutral "just a-doin' mah job" approach? I mean, if I wanted philosophy mixed in with my recreational reading, I'd read Kant...or at least Lester Dent. And then we have to deal with his characters...I mean, come on! In a couple of them I counted almost three dimensions! Why does the character of Mack Bolan seem almost like the Pendleton version...you know, the one who exhibited a sense of humor and got hurt and fatigued and even questioned himself? And on top of that--(Huh? What? What a minute...) Oh, okay. I've just been reliably informed that I LIKE all of that stuff(which is why I don't like most Bolan books)! Those were actually just a few of the reasons I was able to read "Blood Trade" without drifting into a boredom-induced coma or guessing the ending by page 6. Nor did I ever put the book down to find something more interesting to do...like Loofaing my foot calluses. A short list of why I enjoyed "Blood Trade" so much includes (a) Simple surprise. I didn't expect it to be so good and plausible. In fact, it can and should stand on its own as a first-rate action thriller without being judged as only a small entry in a series that has been running since the Devonian period. (b) The characters are actually honest-to-gosh characters, not just names with a set of tedious mannerisms and catch-phrases slapped on to them. (3) The refreshing, almost startling lack of stereotypes, even in the portrayal of Chang Chi Fu, who in the word-processors of a lot of other writers would be just a half-assed updating of the moldly old "Yellow Peril" characterization ("Yippee! Me make hambugah out of Amellican Yankee pig-dog!!") (4) The plot itself, though not a big menace kind of story was important. It dealt with a relatively original situation in the "Bolanverse" and it strikes very deeply into the core of what turned Mack Bolan from a grunt into an Executioner. "Blood Trade" is a terrific debut novel and hopefully we'll see more books of this caliber, with this kind of energy from Doug. He has a very unique voice, but it fits in seamlessly with the series as a whole. Congratulations, Doug.