first novel, Dead Men’s Dust--introducing Joe Hunter, “an all action hero with a strong moral code”--is due out in the States in May from William Morrow.)I came into the crime and thriller genre by a different route than many of the writers out there. When others talk at length about the works of Chandler, Hammett, Spillane, Parker, and Leonard, I’m the one with the blank stare. I’ve long been aware of Mike Hammer, Spenser, et al. through the wonders of television, but I confess to never having read any of the obviously wonderful books in which they appear. I came into this genre through reading Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Cimmerian) and H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu Mythos) as a young teenager. I loved the action and the derring-do of the Howard books, as well as the creepy supernatural undertones of Lovecraft.
It was only natural, I suppose, that I moved on to “action”-based books when I started looking around in hopes of widening my reading base. Back in 1979, I discovered a dog-eared copy of a paperback novel first published 10 years earlier. That book was War Against the Mafia, by Don Pendleton, which introduced Mack Bolan to the world … and it really rocked my boat.
I know I was an impressionable 13-year-old, but the blood and thunder penned by Don Pendleton gripped me, and I began to search out as many Mack Bolan books as I could find--not to mention fund on a meager income from delivering newspapers. I didn’t realize it at the time, but those novels about Bolan, aka The Executioner, made up a huge, best-selling series created by “the father of action adventure” (a term allegedly coined by Pendleton himself). I devoured book after book in the massive 38-volume series Pendleton composed between 1969 and 1980. There were other players trying to feed off Pendleton’s literary success, most notably the Destroyer series, featuring Remo Williams and Chiun, and I lapped those up as well. Quite frankly, I couldn’t get enough of those types of stories. And they led me on to discover other characters cut from the same cloth as The Executioner. Jack Reacher, Joe Pike, Bob Lee Swagger, and, yes, my own creation, Joe Hunter, all owe a nod toward the original larger-than-life figure that was Mack Bolan--even if the influences are barely subliminal.
Mack Bolan was the American hero of his time. His adventures were set against the backdrop of Vietnam War horrors and stories about soldiers who returned home to crowds hurling verbal abuse their way, when they should have been treating those men with the respect heroes are due. Mack Bolan was a voice for those soldiers--a man of virtue with a strong moral sense and a desire to see justice done. Looking back, War Against the Mafia was a violent book, as were all of the subsequent installments of that series, but Pendleton wasn’t propagating vigilante action or aggression. The violence in his stories was simply an allegory for the sanctity of life and a person’s responsibility to fight for that life.
With War Against the Mafia we get exactly what we expect. As it says on the cover, “Mack Bolan, Vietnam war hero, launches a bloody, one-man crusade against the most powerful gangster force in the history of the U.S.A.” The story has a simple premise, which was used to equal success by Marvel Comics’ Punisher series. Bolan, the Special Forces’ top assassin, returns from the hell of jungle warfare to discover that his family has been pushed into despair and degradation by underworld figures, and Bolan just isn’t the kind to let them get away with it. Cue the blood and thunder that appealed to a 13-year-old boy and still resonates with me three decades later.
Pendleton, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, began his writing career by authoring several books under the pseudonyms “Dan Britain” and “Stephan Gregory.” He also wrote several non-fiction books with his wife, Linda. But it is for the first run of Executioner books that he is best remembered. Pendleton penned books 1 through 15 in the series, before a legal battle with his publisher, Pinnacle Books, saw book 16, Sicilian Slaughter (1973), written by an unknown author under the pseudonym “Jim Peterson.” Moving his business to another publisher, New English Library, Pendleton took up the yoke again with book 17, Jersey Guns (1974), and went on to deliver the next 21 books in the series. Following Satan’s Sabbath (1980), Pendleton’s Executioner was licensed to the Harlequin Publishing group, and all subsequent Mack Bolan books, including numerous spin-offs (Phoenix Force, Able Team, Super Bolan, and Stony Man) were composed by a team of writers. Pendleton acted as a consulting editor on the books but he didn’t write any of them, though his name always appeared on the covers.
In addition to the Executioner series, Pendleton wrote novels about some more endearing characters, including hard-boiled private eye Joe Copp and psychic detective Ashton Ford. The Copp and Ford books are still in print, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for Pendleton’s original Mack Bolan novels.
Sadly, Don Pendleton passed away in 1995, but he has left behind an admirable body of work that continues to influence writers 40 years after the publication of War Against the Mafia. Although they are not strictly “crime” novels, the Executioner series featured crime as the nucleus of Bolan’s rage against injustice. In our present times, Bolan’s ethos still rings loud and clear. Live large and stand proud.
READ MORE: Reviews of the Executioner books by Marty McKee of the blog Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot.
9 comments:
I loved these books. I used to buy them from Woolworths.
Great scan of an early (first?) edition of the book. I think it had at least two different covers afterward.
Between ages 12 to 17, those books were an essential part of my reading diet. I gradually transitioned on to Westlake, John D. MacDonald, Lawrence Block and the like, but in those formative years the Bolan books hardwired me into reading. I still have all of the original series, and I get a little nostalgic thrill every time I look at the covers. For those of us who grew up in the '70s, those books were the equivalent of the pulps.
Most of Pendleton's contemporary imitators paled in comparison, but I remember - even as a 13-year-old - thinking Berkley's "Lone Wolf" series was unusually well-written. I found out years later they were written under a pseudonym - quickly for cash - by science fiction author Barry N. Malzberg.
When I first read this post I thought I knew these books from my dad's epic collection when I was a kid, but soon realized that while there were a few Executioners in the house I was reading The Destroyer, which added some martial arts, satire and sci-fi to the mix.
And though I can't remember a single storyline, those lurid covers come back to me in my dreams. Wonderful stuff.
These books are great. I really enjoyed (still do form time-to-time) these original Don Pendleton Executioners.
Heck, I even enjoy many of the non-Pendleton Bolans in the early-to-mid-1980s.
Nice review.
Thanks you guys - I guess I'm not the only Mack Bolan fan out there.
I started reading for pleasure with Robert E. Howard as well, and in 1984 or so, I found The Executioner #59 on the stands, and have been a fan ever since. In fact, I recently posted a blog about it which was visited by Linda Pendleton herself. Of course, she was there to correct an error I had made. But I still geeked out about it. :)
does anyone remember another character,sililar to mack bolan,from the 70s,maybe called the Butcher???
I loved The Executioner series and almost all as ebooks and spinoffs. My mother introduced me to The Destroyer and Spencer series, i still reread some every so often . I DO Remember The Butcher as well but unable to find them or remember the authors name, I do remember the jacket art of The Butcher looked like Charles Bronson to me. Would love to see them brought to small screen ie netflix prime etc and hope they would be done then the Remo Williams film, still disappointed with that. Keep reading n enjoy the action in our minds and from our well penned heros.
Stuart Jason was the author. The 1st book was called "Kill quick or die."
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