Customer Reviews

Tooth And Claw (Super Bolan)

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Super Bolan #49 written by Mike McQuay an author of a half dozen other Executioner and Super Bolan books. This book was issued in August, 1996, a short time before China was to take over the governing of Hong Kong on June 30, 1997.

The story's main focus is the Bank of China, especially the offices of the 74th floor, and the red tie hit men who have assembled there to remove (kill) more than 100 undesirable people on a list prior to China's taking control of Hong Kong. The first citizens of Hong Kong to feel the violence are the 'Hong' or leaders of the big trading houses. Members of their families are to be kidnapped, killed, and at times having their luxury homes sometimes burned. The 'Hong' are to be stripped of the all holdings, especially their money, and chased from the island forever. With 165 licensed banks in Hong Kong the Bank of China wants and needs to be preeminent, by garnering all the Hong money the Bank of China feels it can secure complete financial control of Hong Kong.

One thing Wang Wushen and Colonel Li Soo do not envision is a man named Mack Bolan, a man innocently caught up in the middle of all this transition. Bolan's initial mission was a simple one of meeting face-to-face a leader of Hong Kong, but as Bolan arrives at the meeting place Mr. Mao lands at his feet, almost dead, being thrown or having jumped from a bankk window high above. From this deadly beginning Bolan's mission is no longer simple, or 'easy' one, and his mission becomes one of combating the red tie killers and the evil men of no honor directing them.

The book is a very smooth read, very well written. It can be a little over the top at times and not realistically reasonable in some areas. Yet as one reader of one of my earlier reviews replied: this is fiction, and in that he was most correct. So some of the outlandish must be accepted because of the fact that it is fiction. I'm almost positive though any reader must ponder the one bank scene between Bolan and Wang, with the arrival of Li Soo to wonder why Bolan and Wang were both not shot immediately. Li Soo could have wrapped everything up very neatly right then and there for the bad guys. However, since that was only say halfway through the book, that just could not be allowed to happen. Which surfaces another point in these larger, Super Bolan books: there is too much padding at times with extra material to stretch the pages to meet the required amount to fill nearly 350 pages.

All of those small caveats aside this is an enjoyable read for us Bolan fans and since the amount of Super Bolans now in print is nearing the 150 mark, it seems reasonable to think many other readers also enjoy the adventures of our man in black too.

Semper Fi.