Forty-five years ago, author
Don Pendleton's War Against the Mafia, the first novel in what would become the
international best-selling The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series of Action/Adventure
novels, was published. Don Pendleton wrote
37 books in the original series. And now
all 37 novels will be released again on December 16th, 2014, this time in ebook
editions, published by Open Road Media. The
books are now on Pre-Order at Amazon, Kobo, Nook, iTunes, and other ebook
retailers.
Don Pendleton is
acknowledged as the "father of the modern Action/Adventure novel."
His Mack Bolan, The Executioner, theme is "Live Large" and not long
ago the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume II (H-O)
gives derivation credit for "live large" to Don Pendleton and his
Executioner Series.
At the height of the
Executioner success many publishers and writers attempted to ride on the
coattails of Don's success. Some succeeded. Others did not. In many of those
books, what appeared to be missing were the elements that Don Pendleton had so
skillfully crafted with his presentation of his fictional hero, Mack
Bolan.
Don wrote the first novel in
the series, War Against the Mafia out of his desire to express his discomfort
with the reaction of many Americans to our soldiers who were dying for our
country in the jungles of Vietnam
and those coming home to outrageous verbal and physical abuse. So Mack Bolan
became Don's symbolic statement. He also became every soldier's voice. Don created
a heroic character in Bolan, a true hero who was dedicated to justice. The
enemy that Bolan had to fight was no longer on the battlefields of Vietnam but
right here on American soil, and that enemy was the Mafia.
Within his Bolan stories are
strong values with an underlying theme of a higher morality that Bolan follows.
More than once Don said about the Executioner novels, "My biggest job
throughout writing the series was to keep faith with Bolan–that what he is
doing is right. I wanted an enemy beyond redemption–an enemy that all civilized
procedures had failed to put down. The Mafia was ready-made. They embodied all
the evils of mankind."
Since 1980, the Executioner:
Mack Bolan series, pretty much left the Mafia behind, and moved on to fight terrorism
within several spinoff series: Phoenix
Force, Able Team, Stony Man, Mack Bolan, and The Executioner. Currently close to 1,000 books have been
published, based on Don Pendleton's original Mack Bolan character.
In August of 2014, it was announced
that Hollywood screenwriter and producer,
Shane Salerno had acquired the film rights and a film franchise is planned. And
soon after, Warner Brothers announced Bradley Cooper to star.
Read more about Don Pendleton
Follow on Twitter: @waragainstmafia
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