Overseas, Mack Bolan was dubbed “Sgt. Mercy” for the compassion he showed the innocent. On the home front, they’re calling him the Executioner for what he’s doing to the guilty.
In the jungles of Southeast Asia, American sniper Mack Bolan honed his skills. After twelve years, with ninety-five confirmed hits, he returns home to Massachusetts. But it’s not to reunite with his family, it’s to bury them—victims in a mass murder/suicide. Even though Bolan’s own father pulled the trigger, he knows the old man was no killer. He was driven to madness by Mafia thugs who have turned his idyllic hometown into a new kind of war zone.
Duty calls . . .
Introducing an action hero “who would make Jack Reacher think twice,” this is the first book in the iconic series of vigilante justice that has become a publishing phenomenon (Empireonline.com). With more than two hundred million Executioner books sold since its debut, the series continues to stimulate. Gerry Conway, cocreator of Marvel Comics’ The Punisher, credits the Executioner as “my inspiration . . . that’s what gave me the idea for the lone, slightly psychotic avenger.” The series is also now in development as a major motion picture.
War Against the Mafia is the 1st book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
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Overseas, Mack Bolan was dubbed “Sgt. Mercy” for the compassion he showed the innocent. On the home front, they’re calling him the Executioner for what he’s doing to the guilty.
In the jungles of Southeast Asia, American sniper Mack Bolan honed his skills. After twelve years, with ninety-five confirmed hits, he returns home to Massachusetts. But it’s not to reunite with his family, it’s to bury them—victims in a mass murder/suicide. Even though Bolan’s own father pulled the trigger, he knows the old man was no killer. He was driven to madness by Mafia thugs who have turned his idyllic hometown into a new kind of war zone.
Duty calls . . .
Introducing an action hero “who would make Jack Reacher think twice,” this is the first book in the iconic series of vigilante justice that has become a publishing phenomenon (Empireonline.com). With more than two hundred million Executioner books sold since its debut, the series continues to stimulate. Gerry Conway, cocreator of Marvel Comics’ The Punisher, credits the Executioner as “my inspiration . . . that’s what gave me the idea for the lone, slightly psychotic avenger.” The series is also now in development as a major motion picture.
War Against the Mafia is the 1st book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
After Mafia pressure destroyed his family, ace sniper Mack Bolan left the jungles of Southeast Asia to declare a new war on the home front. A one-man army, he wiped out the mob in his Massachusetts hometown. That was just the beginning.
Hunted by the police, tracked by the FBI, and carrying a price on his head, Bolan is on the move. After crossing paths with an old war buddy in Los Angeles, the Executioner devises a plan. He’s going to round up the best sharpshooters, scouts, demo experts, and hard-core killers, and clean up the West Coast. Ten ruthless soldiers in all, forged in the fires of Vietnam . . .
The Executioner’s own Death Squad.
When Don Pendleton created Mack Bolan, the iconic vigilante action hero “who would make Jack Reacher think twice,” he established nothing less than a publishing landmark (Empireonline.com). With more than two hundred million Executioner books sold to date, its influence on the action genre is still being felt. In cocreating his Marvel Comics avenger, The Punisher, Gerry Conway admits: “I was fascinated by the Don Pendleton Executioner character . . . I wanted to do something that was inspired by that.” Now in development as a major motion picture, the Executioner series lives on.
Death Squad is the 2nd book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Once a Vietnam military hero, crack sniper Mack Bolan is now a vigilante, driven by the death of his Massachusetts family to exact vengeance on the mob. Waging war on the West Coast, the Executioner amassed a ten-man army as backup. Seven are now dead. Two are in jail. Only Bolan remains. With a bounty on his head, and every cop in Los Angeles on his tail, Bolan decides to erase his greatest liability: his face.
Under the knife of a former army surgeon, Bolan is transformed. With trademark cunning, he infiltrates the Sicilian syndicate that butchered his friends. In cozying up to the boss’s daughter, Bolan’s plan of revenge has never been so intimate. The Executioner may have a new look, but he’s got the same attitude. Soon his fury is going explode, and strike terror in the very heart of the Mafiosi.
In writing his iconic Executioner series, Don Pendleton turned his lone-wolf vigilante into a bestselling phenomenon and “spawned a genre” that still influences artists today (The New York Times). Gerry Conway, cocreator of the Marvel Comics avenger, The Punisher, cited the novels as “my inspiration . . . [the] modern equivalent of the pulps.” More than two hundred million copies of the Executioner books have been sold—and a major motion picture based on this classic action series is now in development.
Battle Mask is the 3rd book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
A sniper trained in the jungles of Vietnam, Mack Bolan is the kind of vigilante hero “who would make Jack Reacher think twice” (Empireonline.com). Unleashing his vengeance coast to coast, Bolan is waging a very personal war on organized crime. Now, with a cadre of Cuban revolutionaries on his side, it’s time for a hurricane called the Executioner to blindside Miami.
Bolan had planned to fight his way across the country, taking out branches of the syndicate one by one. Then comes a break Bolan never dreamed of: All of his enemies have assembled in the Sunshine State to finalize the elimination of the Executioner. For Bolan, the mob’s Miami summit is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to destroy the entire Mafia with one single blow.
“Don Pendleton’s anti-hero is just as powerful in the world of publishing as he is in the dark alleys of any crime-infested urban hell” (NYBooktime). With more than two hundred millions copies of the Executioner books sold since its phenomenal debut, the iconic action series is still inspiring artists today. Gerry Conway, cocreator of the Marvel Comics series, The Punisher, credits the series for “[giving] me the idea for the lone, slightly psychotic avenger.” Currently in production as a major motion picture, the Executioner still blows away the competition.
Miami Massacre is the 4th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Using the sniper skills he sharpened in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Mack Bolan has waged a personal war against organized crime. Cleaning up the states came first. Now he’s going international. While staking out Mafia activity at the Washington Dulles airport, Bolan is caught in an ambush by syndicate guards. As a cordon of police close in on the most wanted man in America, Bolan is forced to fly or die.
Escaping on an airliner bound for the City of Lights, Bolan meets a man who could be his mirror image. So much so, that the double is mistakenly kidnapped by the mob as he steps off the plane. To rescue this unsuspecting innocent, the Executioner is going to bring the Paris underworld to its knees. He may not speak French, but he’s fluent in the universal language of a .32.
With more than two hundred millions copies of the Executioner books sold to date, author Don Pendleton didn’t just create a cultural phenomenon, he “spawned a genre” that still impacts artists today (The New York Times). Acknowledged by Gerry Conway as “[the] inspiration” for the Marvel Comics avenger, The Punisher, Mack Bolan remains “just as powerful in the world of publishing as he is in the dark alleys of any crime-infested urban hell” (NYBooktime). Currently in development as a major motion picture, the classic Executioner books pack a punch unequalled in the field of action-series adventure.
Continental Contract is the 5th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mack Bolan knows he escaped France too easily. When the Calais ferry arrives in Dover, he steps onto the dock expecting a trap. The quiet port fills with gunfire, and he is on the verge of being overrun when a sports car pulls up beside him, and a woman tells him to jump in. The United Kingdom is in danger, and she believes that only Bolan can save it. As thanks for the rescue the man known as the Executioner will bring his unique brand of justice to the underworld of Great Britain.
He fought his way into England, and he will have to fight his way out. Battling a bizarre, perverse conspiracy, he is shocked when the Mafia does the unthinkable—and asks the Executioner to join its side.
Assault on Soho is the 6th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mack Bolan escapes England unhurt but unarmed, praying for a quiet homecoming. This ex–Vietnam sniper, whose war against the Mafia has taken him around the globe, should have known better. Four mob heavies surround him as he gets off the plane, but it only takes a moment for the man known as the Executioner to take one of their guns as his own. He fights his way to the helipad and lifts off on a short trip to Midtown. The skies are quiet, but the mob will be waiting when he lands.
Injured in his escape, Bolan takes refuge with a trio of kind young women, who nurse him back to health as he discovers a Mafia conspiracy to take control of the nation’s government. His European vacation is over, and it’s time for the Executioner to go to work.
Nightmare in New York is the 7th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
When he began his one-man assault on the Mafia, ex–army sniper Mack Bolan imagined it as a war of attrition. Kill enough button men and underbosses, made guys and capos, and the international crime syndicate would finally collapse. But when he learned that the Mafia was planning a full-scale takeover of the US government, the Executioner realized attrition would not be enough. The Mafia must be destroyed, and the place to do it is Chicago.
The battle for Chicago starts with a single shot when Bolan pulls the trigger and ends the life of underboss Louis Aurielli. In a city where every politician, businessman, and cop is on the mob payroll, he will have nowhere to hide. But that’s okay with Bolan—sometimes it’s better to fight in the open.
Chicago Wipeout is the 8th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mack Bolan has fifty seconds to cripple the Mafia’s operations in Las Vegas. Fifty seconds to take out ten gunmen, destroy a jeep, and down a helicopter. Fifty seconds to snatch millions of dollars away from the international crime syndicate that he declared war on so long ago. For forty-nine seconds, everything goes fine . . .
The Executioner takes aim at the mob’s biggest casino as he awaits a duel with two of the deadliest hit men the Mafia has to offer.
Vegas Vendetta is the 9th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The plane comes in low over the Puerto Rican resort, getting Mack Bolan close enough to notice snipers in the hotel windows and shotguns in the cabanas. He escaped his latest battle against the Mafia by fleeing to the Caribbean, but the tentacles of the mob stretch everywhere, and they are waiting for him to land. He rigs the plane for a collision course with the resort, bailing out just before impact and escaping into the jungle. He has only thirty bullets, and there are more than a hundred Mafia soldiers hot on his trail. He likes those odds.
It was in the jungles of Vietnam that Bolan was first dubbed the Executioner, and in the steamy forests of Puerto Rico, he will start a guerrilla war. He is one man against an army—but Mack Bolan is the deadliest man this island has ever seen.
Caribbean Kill is the 10th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
San Francisco is the most photogenic city in America, with rolling hills, clanging trolleys, and all the charm that Northern California has to offer. But it is also the nation’s pornography capital, and for that it has drawn the attention of Mack Bolan, the Executioner, whose one-man war against the Mafia grows more merciless with every battle.
He reopens the fight at a nightclub, launching a satchel of high explosives into a meeting of local mobsters. Just before it detonates, he notices a delicate young beauty walking into the club. He yanks her away from the blast, delaying his own escape and bringing the full firepower of the San Francisco mob down onto himself. She offers him a way out, but will it lead to safety—or an ambush? Either way, the Executioner will be ready.
California Hit is the 11th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
When the Pittsfield Mafia destroyed Mack Bolan’s family, the only survivor was his brother Johnny—a wide-eyed teen not prepared for life on the front lines of a war against the mob. Before he began his assault on organized crime, Mack sent Johnny into hiding along with Mack’s fiancée, Val. Now they’ve been kidnapped by an enterprising thug who thinks he can use the Executioner’s family against him. The Boston mob will pay for his mistake.
The city’s Mafia has splintered into factions, and Bolan is about to blow them wide open. He starts by marching into a few mob hangouts, killing the man in charge and demanding his brother back. When he learns that Johnny and Val might be dead, he loses it completely. When he’s being cautious, the Executioner is the deadliest man in America. Angry, he’s more trouble than an atomic bomb.
Boston Blitz is the 12th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
As his war against the Mafia has carried him across the United States, Mack Bolan has begun to hear rumors that the mob is planning something big. They call it la Cosa di tutti Cosi—a fiendish plan to use the combined might of organized crime to infiltrate the US government and take it down from the inside. Over the last weeks, politicians, lobbyists, and civil servants have died suspicious deaths, paving the way for a new set of laws that will let the secret Mafia government step out of the shadows. When it does, the Executioner will be waiting.
Bolan is no flag waver, but he has watched too many good men die for their country to let America go down without a fight. To save the States from its corrupt politicians, Bolan makes landing on the shores of the Potomac—to erect a monument in blood.
Washington I.O.U. is the 13th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
San Diego has one of the finest harbors in the world, easy access to Mexico, and more federal dollars than anywhere else in the country. This combination has made it irresistible to the mob, which runs the city from top to bottom. In his one-man war against organized crime, Mack Bolan has never considered targeting San Diego. The city is too sick to save.
Mack’s old commander from Vietnam is in trouble with the San Diego syndicate, and only the Executioner can save him. Once, Mack would have given anything for Howlin’ Harlan Winters, but he’s not sure he can trust him anymore. Taking down the San Diego mob will require a different kind of battle—a silent infiltration and a surgical assault. To back himself up, Bolan recruits the two surviving members of his long-disbanded Death Squad. If San Diego cannot be saved, it will have to be destroyed.
San Diego Siege is the 14th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The war in Philadelphia starts in the back of a Mafia-owned garage when a man in combat gear turns his machine pistol on five small-time loan sharks. They don’t even have time to react before Mack Bolan guns them down, in full view of a customer and a mechanic. Before the Executioner departs, he tells the survivors to give the local don a message: It’s over. But the battle for Philadelphia is just beginning.
Bolan’s war against organized crime has brought chaos to cities across the country, and while countless local cops may sympathize with his motives, the federal government has no patience for vigilantes. When Bolan surfaces in Philadelphia, the feds go after him like never before. Since his war began, Mack Bolan has kept his pledge never to kill an honest cop. Before he can escape the city of brotherly love, a federal dragnet will put the Executioner to the test.
Panic in Philly is the 15th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mack Bolan bombs down the Jersey Turnpike in a stolen Mustang, a bullet lodged in his ribs and blood seeping down his leg. A dragnet is closing in on the Executioner, whose one-man war against the Mafia has crippled the international crime syndicate but has not yet destroyed it. To evade the roadblocks, he turns onto a lonely two-lane highway when he sees a car full of killers coming up behind him.
Bolan only has three bullets, so he lures the hit men into a car wreck, killing them but sacrificing the Mustang. On foot, he limps into the Jersey night. This is the most corrupt state in the union—the place where mob bosses come to retire in tacky little towns whose police are proud to be on the Mafia payroll. The Executioner is alone, unarmed, and hunted by every killer in the state. But that’s his comfort zone.
Jersey Guns is the 17th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The plane comes in low, dropping its sole passenger on the edge of the oilfield known as Klingman’s Wells. Wearing all black, his chest crisscrossed with ammunition, Mack Bolan begins his assault on the facility. With his two favorite pistols and a handful of grenades, he cripples this mob-run drilling site, causing enough chaos to allow him to escape unharmed—and rescue the kidnapped woman who is trapped inside.
Bolan’s one-man war against organized crime has hamstrung the mob’s gambling operations and stopped its corruption of Washington. Desperate for funds, the syndicate has infiltrated the Texas oil industry, starting with Klingman’s Wells. To save the Lone Star State from mob rule, the Executioner hits one Mafia stronghold after another in a tornado of destruction that is appropriately Texas size.
Texas Storm is the 18th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Ever since he began his one-man war against the Mafia, Mack Bolan has dreaded the day he would take on Detroit. The driving engine of the American economy, Detroit is run by the most stable mob outfit in the country. In other cities the Executioner has played different factions of organized crime against one another, letting them do his bloody work for him. But Detroit is a dictatorship of crime, and the only way to bring it down will be to slip in beneath the radar.
While preparing to infiltrate, Bolan encounters Toby Ranger, a beautiful undercover operative who has done him favors in the past. One of her “Ranger Girls” is missing, kidnapped by the grisliest villain in organized crime. When Bolan’s war against the city turns personal, Detroit is going to pay.
Detroit Deathwatch is the 19th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Mack Bolan learned to kill in Vietnam in a hellish, impenetrable jungle that he never knew could exist in the United States—until he came to the bayous of Louisiana. He spends a week in the swamp outside New Orleans learning the turf and waiting for the Mafia to pass by. When it does, it’s in force, with more than a dozen trained gunmen protecting an armored car carrying $300,000 in dirty money.
But their guns are no match for Mack Bolan. New Orleans is where the Mafia made its American debut—and now it’s where the mob is going to die.
New Orleans Knockout is the 20th book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
On a remote island in Puget Sound, a millionaire’s house has been sold to the mob. The dock has been lengthened, security has been tightened, and men with guns have been scattered across the shore. Late on a moonlit night a figure in black drops in from the sky. He is Mack Bolan, the Executioner, whose one-man war against organized crime has carried him to Seattle. He will not like what he finds.
Beneath the main house, Bolan discovers a sprawling underground bunker being dug into solid rock. This is the Mafia’s newest firebase—a fortified compound from which to control shipping traffic across the Pacific Ocean. If the mob can control shipping, it has a chance to control the world, unless Bolan finds a way to push this island fortress back into the sea.
Firebase Seattle is the 21st book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
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Don Pendleton (1927-1995) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the age of fourteen, during World War II, he enlisted in the Navy, serving until 1947 as a Radioman. He returned to active Naval duty during the Korean Conflict. Following the war he worked as a railroad telegrapher, CAA/FAA air traffic control specialist, and aerospace engineer. In the latter career, he worked as a senior engineer for Martin-Marietta's Titan ICBM programs and as an engineering administrator in NASA's Apollo Moonshot program. He published his first short story in 1957 and his first novel in 1961. Leaving his aerospace career behind, Don turned to full time writing in 1967, produced a number of mystery, science fiction and futuristic novels, a screenplay, and numerous poems, short stories and essays.
In 1969, War Against the Mafia, featuring Mack Bolan, the Executioner, was published. The phenomenal success of the first novel led to thirty-seven sequels over the next twelve years. Dozens of imitators, inspired by Pendleton's success, arose during the 1970's to constitute a new particularly American literary genre and the term Action/Adventure coined by Pendleton himself, has since spread to encompass television and motion picture formats as well. The original best-selling Executioner novels have been translated in more than thirty languages with in-print figures of more than 200 million copies worldwide. Pendleton franchised "Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan" to Harlequin's Gold Eagle Books in 1980, and more than 900 books based on the Executioner and spin-offs--Phoenix Force, Able Team, Stony Man, Mack Bolan, Super Bolan, have been published under their continuing program.
In December, 2014, Open Road Media released 37 ebooks of the original Don Pendleton's The Executioner. Mack Bolan's war against the mafia begins again.
As of October 11, 2016, Open Road Media is putting War Against the Mafia, Death Squad, and Battle Mask, books 1, 2, and 3, into print.
In November 2018, an Executioner short story written by Don Pendleton in 1978, "Willing to Kill, The Executioner: Mack Bolan Short Story", with an Introduction by Don's widow, Linda Pendleton, was published in ebook and print by Pendleton Artists.
Don's more recent works include a series of six mystery novels based the exploits of Joe Copp, Private Eye, and another six mystery novels based on the character, Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective. Both series are in print, Kindle, and in audiobooks.
Don turned to nonfiction in 1990, and with his wife, Linda, produced To Dance With Angels, a definitive study of life after death and spirit communication. Published in hardcover by Kensington, it had four editions. Linda wrote a new Introduction and put the latest edition into print and Kindle. Don and Linda also co-wrote Whispers From the Soul, available now in audiobook, print and Kindle.
Don's last novel was Roulette: The Search for the Sunrise Killer, co-written with Linda Pendleton, and is available in Print, Kindle, and audiobook.
Together, Don and Linda, adapted and scripted The Executioner, War Against the Mafia, to Comic graphic novel format, which was published in 1993. Following Don's death, Linda adapted and scripted the second Executioner novel, Death Squad, published in 1996 by Vivid Comics.
His last nonfiction books are A Search for Meaning From the Surface of a Small Planet; and The Metaphysics of the Novel and a Novelist by Don Pendleton with Linda Pendleton, a book for aspiring writers. Recently Linda published a collection of Don's Metaphysical writings: The Cosmic Breath: Metaphysical Essays of Don Pendleton. Also published was Soul Expressions: Poetry Collection Linda Pendleton and Don Pendleton.
In 2012, Don's science fiction was republished for Kindle and Print: The Guns of Terra 10; The Godmakers; and The Olympians. The three books are also available in a Kindle box set.
Don was a long time member of the Authors Guild; Authors League of America; Writer's Guild of America, West; Past West Coast Director of Mystery Writers of America; International Platform Association; and a frequent speaker on campus and writers' symposiums.
Don Pendleton published more than 125 books in his career. For biographical reference and bibliography on Don Pendleton, see:
Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers, (St. Martin Press); Contemporary Authors (Gale); Queen's Edition, Dictionary of International Biography (Melrose - London, England); Murder Ink (Workman); Who's Who in the Midwest.
Official Don Pendleton websites: http://www.donpendleton.com
http://www.executionerseries.com
Photo of Don Pendleton by Linda Pendleton.