War Against the Mafia

Don Pendleton (1927-1995) called himself “the father of action adventure,” a boastful claim that he actually backed up with his superb Executioner novels. The long-running book series stars Mack Bolan, an ex-military sniper who takes on bad guys in all forms. In War Against the Mafia, Pendleton’s first book, Bolan comes home from Vietnam to find most of his family dead; when he finds out the Mafia was indirectly involved, he begins his revenge. The book is not great literature — Pendleton is a blunt and repetitive writer — and the motivations of its characters are never fully explained or explainable. But this is a short and fun revenge thriller, told in classic pulp fiction style.