Free Kindle book, TIME TO TIME by Don Pendleton

Don Pendleton's TIME TO TIME: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective novel is FREE today and tomorrow AT KINDLE.

Grab you copy for you Kindle reader or Kindle App.

http://amzn.to/z8DWbx

Creating Credible Fiction

Andrew E. Kaufman, author of While the Savage Sleeps, and the upcoming book, The Lion, The Lamb, The Hunted, wrote an interesting blog post, “Why the Decision to Kill off a Character can be Murder on an Author.”

Andrew said it well! Fiction has to be larger than life and credible. We have to build a realistic world as we create our stories. So I agree with his comment: “Our job, although writers of fiction, is to depict life in a realistic manner, make the reader forget she's actually reading.”

Our characters tell the story they want to tell and sometimes it can be difficult to kill of one of the characters. But the important thing in writing realistic characters is that even the bad guys may have some redeeming features. That makes them human. My husband, Don Pendleton, the “father of action/adventure,” was very good at that. Sometimes you hated when his bad guys were knocked off. He wrote in his book, Metaphysics of the Novel: The Inner Workings of a Novel and a Novelist:
“If you have villains in your story make sure you have made them powerful and resourceful, not reduced to the idiot level. In real life, the bad guys are highly formidable and dangerous individuals. Real life is full of grim games played by grim people. So should your fictional world be, if that is the type of story you are presenting. Do not indulge in some juvenile misunderstanding of the forces that move and shake this world. Some people are dangerous, not because a gun is in their hand, but because something cold and deadly is in their hearts. So make sure you are presenting a credible world with the world of your novel.”

After all, we are writing about the human situation, no matter what predicaments we place our characters in. Life itself presents challenges, drama, pain, joy, grief, wonder, and more, and a successful novelist is called upon to examine and develop deeper insights into the moving forces that power creativity. Writing is an art, and it is up to the artist to produce a living image of reality.

The author is in charge of his own fictional world, and that fictional world needs to be understandable, coherent, and credible. But it is our own story to create, and not everybody may like it. And that is just fine.

~Linda

Don Pendleton's Mystery Series Facebook Pages

I recently added Facebook pages for Don Pendleton’s two mystery series. The pages, which include information on the books in each series, videos of booktrailers on several books, and additional information, can be found at Facebook.

Don Pendleton's Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Series of Novels

Don Pendleton's Joe Copp, Private Eye Series of Novels











~Linda

Don Pendleton's Joe Copp Mystery Series

Today I put up a Facebook page for Don Pendleton’s Joe Copp Private Eye Thriller series. It includes the covers to the books, designed by Judy. Judy and I have worked together now for ten years. She’s done my websites and my POD and ebook covers. If you have a need for Kindle, Smashwords, ebook covers, or POD covers, take a look at Judy's website. She does good work.

The first book in the Joe Copp series of six, Copp for Hire, is now on SALE for .99 Cents at Kindle and at Smashwords, with the five other novels $2.99 each. If you like hard-boiled, fast paced stories, check the books out. The popular novels were originally published in hardcover and then in paper.

They are also available in print with the new covers that we did recently. All six ebooks should be available very soon in Nook, Kobo, iPad and other formats. I believe three or four are currently available in those additional applications, but all six will soon be, if they are not already.

Many people do not know they can download the Kindle app for their PC, and other devices. You can then sample Kindle books at Amazon, in addition to buying ebooks in seconds.

Check out Don’s Author Page at Smashwords and the Joe Copp series Amazon Kindle.

And if you are on Facebook, visit “Don Pendleton’s Joe Copp, Private Eye Series” Page.

Linda

Don Pendleton's EYE TO EYE, Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

I have put videos up at my new youtube channel. Here is a book trailer on Don Pendleton's EYE TO EYE, Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective




At Amazon in print and Amazon Kindle

~Linda

Don Pendleton's "Joe Copp Mystery Thrillers"

Finally! I now have all six of Don Pendleton's Joe Copp Private Eye mystery thrillers on sale as Kindle and paper with new covers. It has taken me much longer than anticipated to get those six books ready for publication again in print. I am happy with the new covers and I think they look great in print, and others have told me the same thing. I know Don would love them if he was still here--and as some of you know, he died in 1995. I work hard to keep his works available not only for his old fans, but for new readers.

~Linda

Don Pendleton's "Heart to Heart" Novel

Don Pendleton’s fifth Ashton Ford novel, Heart to Heart, is now available at Kindle.

I have enjoyed again reading and getting Ashton Ford ready for Kindle. Don was able to explore metaphysical ideas and the paranormal with his Ashton Ford character.

Don Pendleton wrote this for his readers about his Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective series:

"Through this character I attempt to understand more fully and to give better meaning to my perceptions of what is going on here on Planet Earth, and the greatest mystery of all the mysteries: the why of existence itself. Through Ford I use everything I can reach in the total knowledge of mankind to elaborate this mystery and to arm my characters for the quest. I try to entertain myself with their adventures, hoping that what entertains me may also entertain others–so these books, like life itself, are not all grim purpose and trembling truths. They are fun to write; for some they will be fun to read."

Heart to Heart, is an adventure that Ashton Ford never intended to share because it involved many tender depths of his own heart. It all started with the sudden appearance of a gentleman reported to have died over 150 years ago—and a mind-blowing mystery high above the sea in Laguna Beach, California. There, in a magnificent mansion, Ford finds himself surrounded by luxurious comfort and the flesh and blood “ghosts” of people from the past. Ford’s keen and awesome talents must now pierce the secret of the mansion, while his heart, at the mercy of an ageless and beautiful sculptress, follows a dangerous path of its own.

For Ford, his beliefs about reincarnation and reality would never be the same as he sees into the past, and sometimes, into your heart as well as his own.


Soon, I will have the sixth Ashton Ford book, Time to Time ready for Kindle.

Read about the other books in the series, here and here.

~Linda

Don Pendleton's Psychic Detective Series of Novels

Private Investigator Ashton Ford has special powers, powers that some call supernatural. A former naval intelligence officer, highly knowledgeable in cryptology and philosophy, Ford will shatter your ideas of reality and take you into a mystical world of vision, intuition, and psychic truth. A phenomenal psychic, unparalleled lover, and a true Renaissance man, Ashton Ford can see into the future and even into the distant past using his psychic powers to assist special clients who are in crisis.


Eye to Eye:
In the second book of the Ashton Ford series, Eye to Eye, the most brilliant astronomers and space scientists of the United States and Russia have mysteriously vanished and officials of both countries are frantically searching for answers. Under the shadow of the world's largest telescope, tailed by agents, and with a lovely lady scientist's life in peril, Ashton Ford takes on the most baffling case of his life, and one that will offer him glimpses into worlds that not even he has ever seen.

Mind to Mind:
In this third book of Don Pendleton’s Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective series of novels, what intrigued Ashton Ford about this sadistically brutal "Jane Doe" case was that there were no clues except a few satanic symbols. The silent, mysterious beauty of the woman, why someone wanted her dead, or why the entire left hemisphere of her brain had been surgically removed, leaving her mute and helpless is the central mystery to be solved. It was the toughest case of Ford's career to reach that silent mind with his own and combat the evils of a deadly sex cult and the mysterious beings who threatened her life. In the bargain, he had to discover from which dimension of time and space these mysterious beings emanate. Many of his answers come to him in Ojai, a small community in the mountains not far removed from Los Angeles, a place always thought to be a paradise, that is, until that image of an enchanted place is shattered by paranormal images that defy explanation.

Life to Life:
In Don Pendleton’s fourth novel of the Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective series, Life to Life, Ashton Ford discovers his sense of an orderly universe is threatened by ideas of spirit communication and past lives.

Reverend Annie was a powerful, stunningly beautiful psychic who gave spiritual guidance to thousands of troubled souls and was preparing to extend her ministry throughout the world. But when her family and followers began dying in mysterious, horrifying ways, she had to call on Ford to discover the truth behind their deaths. Soon, Ford found that the lovely reverend was the center of a centuries-old mystical group now threatened by malevolent and divisive forces. Ford had to wage a cosmic battle in a shadowy realm of the unreal and the unearthly–a world that challenges all that we know.

Now at

Kindle: Heart to Heart and Time to Time.
Read about the first Ashton Ford book, Ashes to Ashes.

All six of the Ashton Ford books are available in paper, AND NOW ALL AT KINDLE editions. Coming later this spring, there will be new editions in tradepaper of Don Pendleton's Joe Copp Private Eye series and the Ashton Ford Psychic Detective series with these new covers designed by Linda Pendleton and Judy Bullard.

If you are looking for someone to design your Kindle, POD, covers contact Judy.

Read about Ashes to Ashes , the first Asthon Ford book.

Read about my novel, both in Kindle and tradepaper, Shattered Lens: Catherine Winter, Private Investigator, and I love the reviews I've received.

All six of Don Pendleton's Joe Copp, Private Eye Thrillers are also now Kindles.

I have put a number of our books into Kindle format and I don't have a Kindle yet!--but I have heard people who have a Kindle, love it.

~Linda

Don Pendleton's Joe Copp Mystery Series Now At Kindle

The Joe Copp Mystery Series by Don Pendleton
Featuring Southern California Hard-Boiled Private Investigator, Joe Copp.

Now Available for Kindle at amazon.com

Reviews of the original hardcover editions of the six Joe Copp Thrillers

“Pendleton has a great new character in Copp. His style is fresh, the pace is brisk, and there are enough twists to please any mystery fan.” ~St. Petersburg Times

“This Joe Copp adventure reads like an express train. A throwback to the vintage Spillane era, Pendleton knows how to keep us turning the pages.”~Publishers Weekly

“Pendleton proves again he is the equal of Mickey Spillane when it comes to the hard-boiled mystery.”~Flint Journal

“Pendleton, author of the long-running paperback Executioner series, shows in his first hardcover that hardboiled writing can be insightful as well as action-packed.”~Library Journal

“Pendleton is a master of action and dialog and ‘Copp’ is a taut detective story.” ~Milwaukee Sentinel

“A roller coaster ride of mayhem, murder...rollicking fun.”-Publishers Weekly

“Gripping...Riveting.”~Publishers Weekly

“Pendleton deserves his popularity...A real whiz-bang of a story.”~Associated Press

“Action filled...Copp is a likable tough guy...An exciting, satisfying read.”~Booklist

“A fast-moving, even blurring, story of murder behind the floodlights.”~Book World

“Pendleton, author of the highly successful The Executioner series, knows how to write high adventure tales, and Copp In Deep is just that. Good reading!” ~Abilene Reporter-News

“...this mystery with a twist...unveiled in a riveting resolution.” ~Publishers Weekly


Copp For Hire, the first of the Joe Copp, Private Eye thrillers, is a high tension, fast-moving story all the way, with Copp always in the eye of the storm and about to be engulfed in it at any moment. Characteristic of Don Pendleton’s stories, the hero is never passively involved but is the catalyst for action in straight-ahead, hard-hitting pursuit of solutions, although forever at the point of being overwhelmed by the developing situations. This is classic hardboiled detective fare, and Pendleton is a master of the form.

Copp On Ice: Don Pendleton’s Private Eye, Joe Copp, takes on the world of corruption within a sprawling community in Southern California.

Copp In Deep: In a fast-moving adventure filled with high tension and intrigue, Don Pendleton’s ex-cop turned Private Eye, Joe Copp, sinks into a world of greed and corporate corruption, treason, professional sex, and murder on demand.

Copp In The Dark: Don Pendleton plunges his private eye character, Joe Copp into the dark shadows and lower depths of legitimate theater in this fast-moving story.

Copp In Shock: Private Investigator Joe Copp finds himself recovering from a bout of partial amnesia after being nearly blown away with his own gun. A woman is dead, and Copp’s riveting search for answers leads him from Los Angeles to Mammoth Lakes mountain resort where, in his darkest hour, he is in a fierce battle with his own mind and with those who want to eliminate him.

Coming soon to Kindle, Copp on Fire by Don Pendleton.

Don Pendleton is creator of the original The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series of Action/Adventure novels and is considered the "father of the Action/Adventure" literary genre.

The novels are also available in tradepaper.

Don Pendleton Tribute

Writer and friend, Jon Guenther posted on his blog a very nice tribute, Remembering Don Pendleton in memory of my late husband, author Don Pendleton. Don passed away 14 years ago on October 23, 1995 and I have to say it almost seems impossible that much time has gone by since he left this physical world. Although absent in the physical dimension, he is still very much here.

I had a telephone conversation with Jon today. Jon has written close to thirty books in the Harlequin Executioner program (Executioners, Super Bolans, Stony Man). He is one of many fans who was inspired by Don’s books at a fairly young age. And like a few others, that inspiration resulted in becoming writers themselves. I still enjoy getting the fan emails and hearing how the writings of Don Pendleton influenced lives in various ways.

There is something special about Don’s Mack Bolan character that he created and wrote about in his original series of 38 books. Don gave Bolan the essence of a true hero that has lived on through the “pen” of other writers for about 700 books. Forty years since the first Executioner, War Against the Mafia. Don was known as "the father of action/adventure."

This week I published The Cosmic Breath, Metaphysical Essays of Don Pendleton, Introduction by Linda Pendleton.

Although Don was a successful novelist for many years, he also wrote nonfiction, including metaphysical essays. He had a life-long interest in metaphysics and considered himself a metaphysical scholar. His nonfiction book, (in original E-book edition), A Search for Meaning from the Surface of a Small Planet, was winner of The Independent E-book Award 2002 for Metaphysics, and the Digital Literature Best of Non-fiction, 2002 Award.

The Cosmic Breath is available in tradepaper at Amazon and will be available for Kindle in a few days.

Thank you, Jon for remembering.

And if you missed my interview with Jon Guenther about his new book, Soul Runner, you can find it here.

~Linda

40th Anniversary of Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series, Part Four

In Part Four of the Birth of Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series , Don Pendleton spoke of critics. This again was in about 1973, at a time the Executioner had really taken off. You may want to read Part One, Part Two and Part Three prior to this one. See Posts below this one.

On The Critics by Don Pendleton

Of course, there is that other thing: the unfavorable comments of the critics. I don’t suppose that I’m any more thin-skinned in that regard or any more thick-skinned than most writers are. This is one of the things that every person in the creative or performing arts is wide open to and we have to simply accept it. Don’t have to like it. My own personal view of the written criticism is that it is a literary cannibalism. The critic is literally cannibalizing another piece of work in order to create a piece of work of his own. It must be recognized by knowledgeable people that reviews, criticisms, are, in fact, a valid art form in their own right. The person who writes these pieces of literature are in their own way attempting to create something. But in order to create something it’s necessary to borrow from another’s piece of work–and it just so happens that it makes much better reading and a much more effective criticism if you can really lace into the other guy and tear him apart. After you’ve said, it’s good, it’s great, it’s wonderful, what else can you say? Of course, there are many, many, very sensitive critics in all fields of the arts who are able to come up with some very meaningful criticisms which do add to a piece of work but, by and large, the average run of the mill critique of any art is a cannibalism. So I sort of accept that unfavorable stuff in the same spirit that it is given–I don’t pay much attention to it. I believe the best piece of criticism that I can read regarding my books are my royalty statements.

But there are some valid criticisms about my books which perhaps I should try to answer. It has been said that the books are hastily put together. Haste is a relative term. For a person whose normal writing speed is three or four pages a day or perhaps three or four paragraphs a day, then to put out a full length novel in thirty to sixty days is absolutely a hastily done piece of work.

I average about ten pages a day and I could do double that amount. I have done double that amount, many times. But yes, at some cost to the work. But I suppose that I sweat and agonize over my phrases just as much as any writer who has ever lived. I change, rewrite, revise, carry on as though I was writing the great American novel. I work very conscientiously and with very great pains to put together prose that is easily assailable. I have adopted a sort of conversational style in my writing in these Executioner books, particularly. I try to write more or less as people speak and yet to do so in such a way that there is no ambiguity as to the meaning of what I’m saying. I don’t concentrate on the fine points of grammar. When we run across people in everyday life who are speaking in precise grammatical terms they invariably come off sounding affected, stilted, and I certainly don’t want to write in that fashion.

I know all the rules of sentence structure, use of words, but hell, I’m not writing grammar books. I’m writing fiction. I’m trying to write very hard-hitting, very suspenseful, edge of the seat, eye-ball jerking fiction. I don’t priss around my study with a dictionary in my hand, a thesaurus on my hip, nor do I have a word usage chart on my wall. I’m continually working toward the fast moving, the fast flowing, the evocative, the shocking. I’m trying to keep the reader hooked, page by page, by page. This is my approach. Now to someone who wishes to sit down and tear apart this type of writing, it is the easiest thing to do. I would only like to point out that we can sit down with any of the great works of literature and if we are looking for the weak points, if we are looking for the points where the author had not followed every little rule, yes, we can tear it apart. We can tear Charles Dickens right down to the bone. We could make Ernest Hemingway look like a sixth grade drop-out. It’s not the guys who write by the book who write the books that sell–books that become meaningful. It’s by and large, the guys who say to hell with what I’m supposed to do–this is the way I see it should be done.

I frequently invent words. There are many, many invented words in the Executioner series. I’m not afraid to invent words. The people who compile our dictionaries are constantly working adding new pages to the dictionary. They have to do that because there are people in the world who aren’t afraid to invent new words.

As far as the rules for writing literature–there are no rules. I don’t believe any man ever sat down at a typewriter and began writing a book and did, indeed, manage to write a book that was worthy of being published that followed some sort of formula set down by someone else on how to write the book.

What I regard as my last word to the critics is simply this: No national critic ever noticed the Executioner books until they had become nationwide best sellers. My pitch was made to the readers and the readers responded. If the critics want to come along now and notice me simply because I forced them to notice me by the wide sales of the books, then they can say whatever they please. I simply don’t give a damn. However, if they are going to discuss the books in print, I don’t think it would be unreasonable of an author to ask that they do read the book before they attempt to criticize it. They shouldn’t simply turn to page thirty and pick out a couple to sentences to criticize and then turn to page ninety and then pick out a couple more sentences and call that a criticism of the work.

Don was correct in saying that his readers are who mattered. After all, they are the ones buying the books and coming back for more. Forty years later Don Pendleton's fictional hero, Mack Bolan is still alive and kicking.... The Executioner Series has had at least three generations of readers now. It may be four generations in some cases, as I recall in about 1985 when he did a booksigning at the Pentagon, there was an Air Force Officer who told us his father and son were fans. His son was in Air Force also. So by this time...that Officer's son may have children who are reading the books. I say children because the fans of the books have always included young and older women, along with the boys and men. Everyone loves a hero.

And before I'm asked, no, movies have not been made. I still have hopes that some day Mack Bolan the Executioner may make it to the big screen. When it happens, I hope we recognize him.

The drawing of Mack Bolan was commissioned by Don in 1975 and was done by a young talented artist, Mike Cagle of Indiana.

My thanks to the Gold Eagle writers...keep writing guys!

~Linda

© Copyright Don Pendleton, Linda Pendleton.

Part One
Part Two 
Part Three 
Part Four

40th Anniversary of Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series, Part Two

In Part Two of the Birth of Don Pendleton's Executioner Series, we are looking at the underlying theme of the Mack Bolan books. Don Pendleton considered his Executioner Series of Action/Adventure novels to be a study in the metaphysics of violence. You may want to read Part One first.

In the 1970s Don Pendleton had this to say:

The Metaphysical Theme of the Executioner Books

Some people may say that these books are not examples of metaphysical thought, but they are. Metaphysics grapples with the nature of reality and the Executioner books undertake an examination of the essentially violent nature of nature.

In the first appearance in the series, Bolan was already aware that he lived in a violent universe. In Book One, War Against the Mafia, page 166, –a quotation in Bolan’s journal, his diary–“Life is a competition, and I am a competitor. I have the tools and the skills, and I must accept the responsibilities. I will fight the battle, spill the blood, smear myself with it, and stand at the bar of judgment to be crushed and chewed and ingested by those I serve. It is the way of the world. It is the ultimate disposition.”

Does that sound like Bolan the metaphysician? Not really. It’s Bolan the killer, the Executioner. His metaphysics are an out-picturing of the universal ethic as this character vaguely understands it.

You know the first spark of life to move across this planet was a violent entity, predatory, perpetuating itself through a predacious assault upon its environment. Bolan reflects this when he says: I am alive tonight because of violence loose upon the earth. Each breath I take is paid for by crushed and digested once-living things. Violence is the way of the world because competition is the way of life-perpetuation. Without violence there can be no competition, and without competition there can be no life. Something dies for every instant that something else lives.

Now Bolan, in that, was not referring to human violence per se, but as violence as an essential element of the reality of life. He’s recognized this–and it is a metaphysical idea. But this understanding doesn’t result in a cynical attitude toward life for Bolan as it has done for many others. Quite the opposite. Bolan views the violence of nature as a tool of the universe, a very useful and constructive tool when applied through human consciousness toward the attainment of noble goals. But he takes the Friedrich Nietzsche concept in Book One Front Piece–“You say that a good cause will even sanctify war! I tell you, it is the good war that sanctifies every cause!”

Now, obviously, Bolan has a good cause. Just the same, he isn’t using this shield of good to justify his actions. The cause is already well established. Most people will agree that organized crime is an evil that the world can do without. The problem has been that no one seems strongly enough motivated to put their hands where their conscience is. Bolan is saying, in effect: Now look, I offer up my life to oppose this crime against humanity. In this Nietzsche-ian idea, Bolan says let my blood and my dedication serve as an example to all good people who are sitting by and tolerating these injustices, let my impossible war sanctify this good cause. Not justify it, but sanctify it.

So, no, Bolan is no cynic. In Book Five, Continental Contract he says, “It isn’t enough to simply believe in something. To be truly alive you have to be ready to die for something. Harder still, there are times when you have to be willing to kill for something. I am both ready to die and willing to kill.”

Now the key phrase to that chain of thought is: to be truly alive. Is this metaphysics of a killer? Well, I think so. Another man said it this way once: If you will truly live, then you must be born again. Well, Bolan is reborn. He is reborn with every beat of his heart and he came to this understanding in Book Four, Miami Massacre via the prose of the girl who befriended him and actually died for him. She wrote him: “The world dies ‘twixt every heartbeat, and is born again in each new perception of the mind. For each of us, the order of life is to perceive and parish and perceive again, and who can say which is which–for every human experience builds a new world in its own image–and death itself is but an unusual perception. Live large that you may experience large and thus, hopefully, die large.”

In the original edition of Book One, War Against the Mafia, we also carried two quotations in its Front Piece that have been dropped from the newer editions. These were by Thomas Carlyle–“The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.”–and from Elbert Hubbard, “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.”

I don’t know why these were dropped in the later editions unless some editor thought I was over taxing the page or the mind of the reader, because these two quotations give more of the philosophical overview of the character than the one remaining.

I relay on these little front pieces to set the tone for the book that’s going to follow. In a sense these are the theme pieces and usually this theme is no where else stated in such precise language, although it is certainly present in every movement of the story from the first page to the last.

So, as for the metaphysics of an Executioner, Bolan’s own reading of himself is hung out there in that first book for all to see, who wish to see: “I am not their judge. I am their judgement. I am their executioner.”

This is a rather concise statement of a rather broad metaphysical idea. It is karmic law in action with Bolan as the instrument of that law. He evades “judge not that ye be judged,” “vengeance is mine saith the Lord”–and so forth, by a simple elevation of the law. He, himself, is the violent judgment of a violent universe, the tool of the balancing forces of nature, the cataclysmic answer to the cancer cells of human destiny. Sure, Mack Bolan’s character is his fate and that is a strong metaphysical idea.

As I mentioned in Part One:

Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan, The Executioner, theme is "Live Large" and recently 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.

Part One

Part Three

Part Four
© Copyright Don Pendleton, Linda Pendleton.

40th Anniversary of Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series, Part One

The Birth of Don Pendleton’s The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series of Novels 40 Years Ago,

Part One

In March of 1969, the first paperback novel of Don Pendleton’s The Executioner Series was published. Soon after, the second book, and those to follow, became a publishing phenomenon with the success of the continuing fast-hitting adventures of Mack Bolan’s fight to destroy the Mafia. The books were published worldwide in many languages. Don Pendleton is acknowledged as the "father of the modern Action/Adventure novel." His Mack Bolan, The Executioner, theme is "Live Large" and recently 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 had so skillfully crafted with his presentation of his fictional hero.

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."

In 1980, Don franchised his Executioner characters to Harlequin's Gold Eagle Imprint after writing Executioner thirty-eight, Satan's Sabbath. Gold Eagle's program has resulted in close to 600 Executioner Mack Bolan books published since with several spin-off series: Able Team, Phoenix Force, Stony Man, and Super Bolan. Don was Consulting Editor with the Harlequin program until his death but did not write any of the Harlequin books, which have all been written by a team of writers. Mack Bolan’s fight then became terrorists.
In an effort to explain his Mack Bolan Executioner character and his own style of writing “heroic” fiction, Don Pendleton had this to say:

In the first Executioner novel, War Against the Mafia, the hero, Mack Bolan is quickly established as a superb combat soldier dedicated to a lonely “one man war” against the Mafia. This is a war of attrition...” the same as in ‘Nam.” Bolan uses a variety of heavy military weaponry in a relentless assault against “this new enemy” wherever he may discover their presence. Characterization of the character is to present this very violent figure as a highly motivated, heroic, and sympathetic man.

The books are narrated as the closest thing to docudrama, with an authoritative third-person objective viewpoint occasionally shifting into stream of consciousness via Bolan and other characters. The emphasis is to explain the action as an approving, historical account in a stirring presentation, and to dimension as much as possible the violent activities of the hero.

Styling of the Mack Bolan stories requires a structure for carrying fast-paced hard-hitting action sequences. The writing is punchy, declarative, stirringly graphic. The reach is toward the reader’s belly, designed to evoke visceral response and rousing empathy. This is “heroic” fiction.

Premising the Bolan stories are the ideas that a good offense is the best defense, and that human violence can have positive social values–that, indeed, the goals of mankind can sometimes best be dignified through violent confrontation. The first novel, War Against the Mafia, employed a quote from Nietzsche on the theme page: “You say that a good cause will even sanctify war! I tell you, it is the good war that sanctifies every cause!” These are frankly and consciously violent books because they intend to illustrate the violent themes of mankind.

The Mack Bolan books are prototypical Action/Adventure. A good “action-adventure” book is forever in a hurry, breathless, bursting with movement and activity. I try to keep my hero clean. I try to give him all the higher human attributes. I try to depict his war as a crusade–a very highly motivated crusade, with high ideals, very strong human overtones. I show this man in almost continuous conflict with himself. I show that his course through life is no bed of roses. I’m not exhorting anyone to emulate this man by his example. Certainly there is nothing in the Mack Bolan adventures which exhort anyone, young, old, male or female, to follow in his footsteps. This guy lives a pretty grim life. He’s no James Bond, with all the gourmet foods and the luxury living. He does have an occasional fling at romance but he doesn’t even have the time to appreciate that. The guy has a pretty rough life.

Of course, the character of Mack Bolan is built around this idea–that this is a man who has submerged his own life into his mission. He has sacrificed everything that he holds dear, all his own ambitions. After all he is a man with dreams, and all these things he’s forgone in order to fling himself into this holy war.

I believe, in the deeper theme values, my Executioner books reflect my values–and that something very, very important is taking place here on this obscure little planet. I do feel that life has tremendous meaning. I feel most sincerely that the good life is the challenged life and not the easy one. I think that in their deeper theme values my Executioner books reflect this philosophy. The books are not sheer blood and guts. Sure, there is plenty of that in there, deliberately so.

I do believe that I have managed to utilize highly, highly dramatic situations, perhaps bordering on the melodramatic to bring out the deeper values that are inherent in all human life. I’m very strongly aware that many young and impressionable readers read my books and I feel a sense of responsibility there. I work very hard to see that my hero is a truly three dimensional person with very high purpose. I try to present the things he does in the context of tremendous meaning.

I will never apologize to anyone for my Executioner books. I feel they are a testament to the human spirit of mankind and I find it personally gratifying that the books have evoked such a wide response in the American reader. And it has been a wide response, not just in the numbers of books sold but in the cross section of American society who happen to be reading the books. The readers are professional people, white collar workers, blue collar people, military people, men, women, children from age twelve to age ninety four. The books are more than simple escape literature. The books do actually involve the reader in a rather high cause–the perpetration of human excellence, high human values, and besides that, they are just entertaining, that’s all.

Beyond that, I don’t know how to evaluate the books. I doubt very much that any writer can really give a purely objective evaluation of his work. The only sort of gauge I have is in the way I feel when I write those final words, The End. If I have a good feeling when I put those words down, then I feel I have accomplished my objective. I’ve said what I’ve started out to say and told the story I started out to tell, and if I finish the book feeling good then I have to assume that the reader will finish the book feeling the same way–and that’s really my primary goal.

I want to entertain and along with the entertainment, I do want to include something that does dignify the work a bit. That doesn’t mean that the time spent reading the book is lost time-completely frittered away–but that along with the entertainment there has been a few moments of perhaps introspection on the part of the reader, perhaps a little bit of understanding of the world about him.

I don’t suppose the books will ever go down in the big registry of great literary masterpieces, as certainly, they’re not that. I could only hope that Mack Bolan will take his place along with such American fictional heroes as Mike Hammer, Travis McGee, Perry Mason, Matt Helm, and of course James Bond, who is not an American hero but an Englishman, but nevertheless, in the same genre. And I hope it can be said that Mack Bolan is his own man–his own type–and he does stand apart from the other heroes, perhaps no better than they are but unique in his own right, and aside from the hope that the books will have continuing acceptance, that they will continue to sell, this is about the most I could ask for.

Don Pendleton, left, with Artist Gil Cohen. Gil did Executioner covers for a number of years.

Photo Copyright 1985 by Linda Pendleton.

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

© Copyright Don Pendleton, Linda Pendleton.
All Rights Reserved. 

Don Pendleton's The Executioner Graphic Novel, The Devil's Tools

Comic graphic novel, Don Pendleton’s The Executioner: The Devil’s Tools, now available at book stores such as Barnes and Noble, Amazon, other bookstores and comic bookstores.
I wrote the Introduction to the Graphic Novel, which begins:

Introduction by Linda Pendleton: "Don Pendleton’s Creation of Mack Bolan, The Executioner."

"Forty years ago, 1968, was an unsettling time in America. There was the Vietnam War and civil unrest on our city streets and college campuses, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. There were the psychedelic streets of San Francisco’s Height-Ashbury and Berkeley, love and flower power, and the long iniquities of the Mafia and organized crime. And that’s when The Executioner Mack Bolan series came to be.

"Our returning soldiers were treated badly and the events of this disturbing time in our American history inspired Don to write the first story for the Mack Bolan series. Don needed an enemy beyond redemption for Bolan and the criminal actions of the Mafia made them the perfect choice. After twelve years and thirty-eight books, the Mafia was fairly neutralized in real life. Since 1980 terrorists and international criminals have filled that role.

"My late husband had this to say some years ago about the development of his Executioner series: ‘When I wrote War Against the Mafia as a Vietnam statement, I didn’t expect much to come of it–but quite a bit came and it captured me. I continued the books to feed the obvious hunger that was there for heroic fiction.’"

To read more of my Introduction you will have to get the graphic novel....

This new original script of The Devil’s Tools is written by Douglas Wojtowicz, who has written several of Gold Eagles’ Executioner novels.

Cover art done by talented cover artist Michael G. Herring; Illustrated by S.I. Gallant; Colored by Luis Antonio Delgado; Edited by Thomas Waltz.

Published by IDW Publishing in conjunction with Harlequin’s Enterprises, Gold Eagle, World Wide Library. http://www.idwpublishing.com/

Read more about Don Pendleton at his official site:http://www.donpendleton.com/

~Linda

Don Pendleton's Executioner Series Book Cover Photoshoot

This is from the Blog - Gold Eagle Books - regarding Don Pendleton’s Executioner and Mack Bolan book covers for the series. Some interesting photography...
http://readgoldeagle.blogspot.com/2008/07/mack-bolan-mega-photoshoot.html


"Recently Gold Eagle organized a Mack Bolan mega photoshoot to create new imagery for the Bolan and Executioner book covers.

Model Phil McCauley (who has been associated with the character for several years now,) reprised his role as the Executioner."
















~Linda

Don Pendleton's Bookstore, Books, Comics by Don Pendleton and Linda Pendleton

I have added a Bookstore to my official Don Pendleton Website, featuring copies of books, Comics, and bookmarks, by Don Pendleton and Linda Pendleton. I have included several of Don Pendleton’s Joe Copp, Private Eye mysteries in hardcover and paperback, Executioner: Mack Bolan Comics (some autographed), and additional fiction and nonfiction books by Don and/or Linda Pendleton.

I have designed bookmarks featuring Don Pendleton’s well-known quote, "Live Large," the theme of his Executioner: Mack Bolan original series of novels. Don Pendleton is acknowledged as the "father of the modern Action/Adventure novel." In 1997, the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume II (H-O) was published and gives derivation credit for "live large" to Don Pendleton and his Executioner Series of novels. The phrase has become common usage in recent times.

I also have bookmarks with Dr. James Martin Peebles’ quotations. All items are available for purchase through Paypal.

Visit the Pendleton Bookstore at: http://www.donpendleton.com/bookstore.htm

~ Linda