Punitive Measures (Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan : Stony Man)

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The plot is fast-paced, and intresting. This writer managed to squeeze some suspense out of what could have eaily become another "bloodbath" bok with much body count and not much story. As it is, though, this Stony Man title suffers from what many of them suffer from: too many characters. There are nine Stony Man commandos, and it seems they all must have something to do. This is solved well, for the most part, by having the teams trapse about the globe. Problems arose for me when several of the interesting villains in the bok were snuffed out far easier than I would've liked, when trouble was taken to flesh them out enogh so that a more meaningful fight should have brought them to their end. The bok ends much too quickly, with everything coming to a head and being solved in twenty or so pages. I realize pacing must culminnate in a fast finish, but there's a balance missing from this book, and it almost seems like the writer would've liked to do more but was running out of time/space in which to do it. Those two factors kept me from giving this book five stars. Still, all said, it's a good read, and could've been much worse.

This is one of the better Stony Man titles in a long time. It's a good, fast-paced read, featuring all the usual Stony Man commandos. The plausibility factor is high, and as a result, the plot is a thought-provoking one. The writer's depth of knowledge of what it takes to mass produce and distribute weapons shows through in the amount of detail. "Punitive Measures" is very suspenseful and well-written.