kaleon666@bookwyrm.social reviewed Shadow Strike by Don Pendleton
Review of 'Shadow Strike' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Paperback 2020 Book #2
Oh lord. Testosterone Harlequin I choose you. For the first two chapters of this book I wondered what I had gotten myself into with this paperback challenge I set myself. I almost gave up on this one and tossed it but decided to just ignore the writing and power through. By the end I was engrossed and staying in my favorite reading spot WAYY too long for the comfort of my legs and backside.
Is this good? Not at all. Is it exactly what the tin says it is? Absolutely. This is pure action escapism and nothing more. It's one of those books you pick up at a truck stop because you know you're going to have some downtime at some point and you need something to read other than your phone screen. I picked it up after it was withdrawn from the paperback rack for …
Paperback 2020 Book #2
Oh lord. Testosterone Harlequin I choose you. For the first two chapters of this book I wondered what I had gotten myself into with this paperback challenge I set myself. I almost gave up on this one and tossed it but decided to just ignore the writing and power through. By the end I was engrossed and staying in my favorite reading spot WAYY too long for the comfort of my legs and backside.
Is this good? Not at all. Is it exactly what the tin says it is? Absolutely. This is pure action escapism and nothing more. It's one of those books you pick up at a truck stop because you know you're going to have some downtime at some point and you need something to read other than your phone screen. I picked it up after it was withdrawn from the paperback rack for purely nostalgic reasons. I was never a huge Mack Bolan fan, but I did have a few similar series that I adored (Endworld, CADS, and Doc Savage mostly). I call them similar not because of setting or genre but because of how they are written and how akin to tinned popcorn they are. They're not the fresh made popcorn of movie theaters, they are the popcorn of christmas gifts from distant relatives... but they still hit the spot when you're really just craving popcorn and nothing better is in the house.
Would I recommend it? Totally. If you know what you are getting into.
I could give a synopsis of the story but... really? They're all the same and if you've read one you've read them all: Mack finds a lead on some really bad guys who are trying to do something really bad. Mack then kills a bunch of people in brutal fashion with skills that no real human could hope to match. Throughout this the book spends pages dedicated to listing exactly what the weapons, gear, and clothing being worn by everyone is. There's likely a girl. She may doublecross Mack or sleep with Mack... or often both. There's this attempt to setup a sense of dread and danger but no reader buys that because we all know Mack can't be beat. Mack single-handedly (maybe he has a helper or two) dispatches the bad guys and saves the world. The end.