MIAMI MASSACRE
(Feb 25, 2007)
Here is where the Executioner series gelled into its classic form. The three earlier books had covers not obviously related. THE EXECUTIONER'S DEATH SQUAD was a plain red cover with simple lettering and a black outline of a hand and a pistol near the bottom. THE EXECUTIONER'S BATTLE MASK had a large portrait of a brooding Mack Bolan looming over a typical scene of carnage; it also had a small sunburst at the top that read WAR AGAINST THE MAFIA #3.
But by this fourth installment, we see a cover where the actual illustration is down in the bottom third (small and rather uninspired, showing Bolan from the back on a speedboat firing a handgun against hoods on another boat not all that close). Taking up the top of the cover is a grim portrait of a tense, sweaty Mack Bolan holding up a Luger*, next to the banner FOURTH BEST-SELLER IN THIS EXCITING SERIES. Then the black letters THE EXECUTIONER and below that, MIAMI MASSACRE and then BY DON PENDLETON. So fans now had a format to look for on the stands. I'd guess this layout owed something to the successful Bantam reprints of Doc Savage with that familiar wavy logo and monochrome James Bama covers. The Dell books with Mike Shayne also had a set format but the numbering here was a new touch.
It was 1970, and soon movies like DEATH WISH and DIRTY HARRY would be showing Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson gunning down crooks in all directions while audiences cheered. But Don Pendleton and Mack were a bit ahead of the trend and might even be said to have started the Mafia-buster craze rolling. They certainly spawned a dozen imitations in the paperback adventure field. By MIAMI MASSACRE, the Executioner has settled in for his long crusade, and the next twenty books would follow him to a different location for each battle. New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Lake Woebegon, Boston. Moving the settings each time was a good trick to keep the constant bloodshed from getting monotonous.
After that, Don Pendleton started a sequence named after days of the week. By then, I personally was losing interest a bit as it became clear the series couldn't have a satisfying resolution. Obviously, Mack Bolan couldn't literally wipe out the Mafia once and for all (unless he was set in some alternate reality), and a heroic death for the Executioner in a big climactic strike against the highest Godfather figure wouldn't happen as long as the books were making money. One of the most appeaing aspects of the series was the feeling that time was running out fast for Bolan, that he couldn't get away with this desperate guerilla warfare forever and that he had to do as much damage as possible before he was inevitably gunned down. The longer the series ran, of course, the less urgent Bolan's situation could seem.
Instead, Don Pendleton licensed the character over to another publisher, where ghost writers had Mack Bolan drop his war against the mob to concentrate on terrorists instead. The series lost me right there. Yes, terrorists are a vile menace who need to be fought and all that, but the switch in agenda weakened the main character's essence. Of course, commercially this proved to be a great idea. Thirty years later, I walk into used book stores and still see dozens of various Mack Bolan books stacked up, as well as his spin-offs like Able Team and Phoenix Force and Tough Guy Club, or whatever. And these series still have plenty of fans willing to plunk down a few dollars to read the stories. I'm just not one of them.
Anyway, Bolan's recent experiment in gathering together a team of his Viet Nam brethren to help battle the Mafia had not gone well and (as one of the few survivors),he now continues his war alone. Finding out that mob mugwumps are assembling in Miami to discuss just what to do about this Executioner character, Bolan hurries to give them his opinion (and some bullets). As it happens, the Mafia has its own pair of elite executioners to call in. These are the Talifero brothers, a pair of unsmiling twins who carry out death sentences against targets unusually challenging. For once, Mack Bolan is up against gunmen of his own calibre.
In the brief lulls between all the explosions and burning buildings and gunshots, Bolan befriends a group of expatriate Cuban freedom fighters, including a cute little soldata who has a metaphoric target painted on her back. Getting romantically involved with a fugitive actively being sought by the Mafia, police and FBI is not the best way to guarantee a long life.
Don Pendleton's writing hasn't aged well for me. He seems completely sincere – I don't feel that he was just grinding this stuff out for the bucks, it's something that he believed in passionately. He handles the action scenes very well, and there are classic moments when Bolan drops his trademark marksman's medal in front of someone who immediately wets himself. Or when a mobster's head suddenly bursts into a red splatter and his friend stands staring confusedly – until he hears the distant crack of a sniper rifle. Even the quieter moments spent setting up the upcoming apocalyptic shootouts are handled okay. It's Pendleton's actual style, his word choice and tempo, that I find irritating. I suppose if any character in all of fiction deserves macho prose, it would be Mack Bolan. But all the overstatement and posturing reminds me too much of the writing found in the old men's magazines like HAIRY-CHESTED ADVENTURE and REAL HE-MAN. And the opening quotes from various historical figures, followed by bloodthirsty paraphrases from Mack Bolan, also struck me as dreadfully pretentious. I did like Pendleton quite a bit when I first read these books, so my tastes have obviously and inevitably changed,
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*Later reprints replaced this with a picture of a rather mellow and smug Mack holding up his AutoMag, suggesting that his life was no longer such a nerve-wracking desperate thing.
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