The Executioner 48 the Libya Connection

Mack Bolan the Executioner #48

by Don Pendleton

This time, all the stops were out. Mack Bolan became a single-minded, death-spewing avenger the minute Eve disappeared....

Someone he cared about, Eve had been swallowed up by the voracious bloodthirst of international terror.

Bolan stalked the savages responsible deep into the labyrinth of double-dealing and betrayal that marks modern terrorism. The hunt took him from the lush Caribbean to the scorching Sahara in pursuit of the Libyan connection that held the fate of civilization in its grasp.

For The Executioner, it was the toughest mission yet, fueled by the most righteous revenge. Anyone who got in his way. . . was dead.

Genres: Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 1982

About the author

Don Pendleton was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 12, 1927 and died October 23, 1995 in Arizona.

He wrote mystery, action/adventure, science-fiction, crime fiction, suspense, short stories, nonfiction, and was a comic scriptwriter, poet, screenwriter, essayist, and metaphysical scholar. He published more than 125 books in his long career, and his books have been published in more than 25 foreign languages with close to two hundred million copies in print throughout the world.

After producing a number of science-fiction and mystery novels, Don launched in 1969 the phenomenal Mack Bolan: The Executioner, which quickly emerged as the original, definitive Action/Adventure series. His successful paperback books inspired a new particularly American literary genre during the early 1970's, and Don became known as "the father of action/adventure."

"Although The Executioner Series is far and away my most significant contribution to world literature, I still do not perceive myself as 'belonging' to any particular literary niche. I am simply a storyteller, an entertainer who hopes to enthrall with visions of the reader's own incipient greatness."

Don Pendleton's original Executioner Series are now in ebooks, published by Open Road Media. 37 of the original novels.

Wikipedia: Don Pendleton

Reviews

[Bill Riggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Mack discovers that his old flame, Eve, has fallen into the clutches of international terrorists he carves a bloody path of destruction from the Caribbean to the deserts of Libya to find her. Penned by Stephen Mertz this is a violent and brutal Executioner entry that never slows down.

[Holger Haase · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recently learnt that the Mack Bolan/Executioner series will cease being produced later on this year and my initial reaction was: They are still around???? I generally identify them with the 70s/80s genre of violent men's fiction and had assumed that they are long gone but I guess they must be pretty much the only one of those at the time extremely popular series of cheaply produced pulp fiction that have survived for this long.

My second reaction was to go to my book shelf and see if I still have some unread ones around and lo and behold there was THE LIBYA CONNECTION, a relatively early entry into the series where Bolan had just been pardoned by the US government for his Mafia killings in exchange for doing risky underground missions with them. In this book he goes to Libya on a personal mission to rescue a former love interest. As can be guessed with those type of at times cynical books, things may not necessarily go according to plan.

The Mack Bolans like most of the other 1970s men's fiction series are the literary equivalent of watching a new direct-to-video Jean-Claude Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren movie. They deliver action fast and furiously but won't stay around for too long. Disposable bubblegum action. Nothing wrong with that.

[ShanDizzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evita certainly was avenged! Whew!

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything in The Libya Connection has been done before in previous Mack Bolan stories.

We’ve been to Libya before, fought against paramilitary terrorists before, gone to avenge women before, and raced against time to save the world from a deadly virus. Bolan has killed hundreds (if not thousands) of similar terrorists and saved the day numerous times too.

And yet for some reason Connection still feels fun and exciting. Credit Mertz for keeping the relatively thin (and repetitive) story moving at a breakneck pace, adding some pretty cool set pieces and one of the better action sequences in the entirety of the series up to this point.

So yeah, nothing new or original here, but still, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first of the series that I've read from the entries that were written by ghost writers, this book is a little thin on content. I mean, sure, the series as a whole is, but it's especially noticeable here. Mack runs around, survives a helicopter crash, pulps some faceless baddies with his trusty Desert Eagle (gosh this book loves to say someone was "pulped"), and ultimately finds a former love interest who has been gruesomely fridged. That's it, that's the whole book.

I think the changes that came with the authorship switch are really interesting, but I'll probably wait to read a few more of these before I comment on that.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well done volume in the series by the great Stephen Mertz. Has that Pendleton feel and the mission was a personal one since Bolan was going to save a friend. However it ends up being more when the mission takes him to Libya where a coup was about to happen. Also a dangerous world ending chemical weapon was stolen and is also in Libya. He must save his friend, stop the forces lined up against him, and make sure to get the chemical weapon back before it could be used.

Recommended, Mertz is one of the better Executioner writers.

[Amos Chauke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting