{"id":4008,"date":"2007-09-10T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-10T20:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2017-11-24T16:03:27","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T22:03:27","slug":"book-report-panic-in-philly-by-don-pendleton-1973","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/10\/book-report-panic-in-philly-by-don-pendleton-1973\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: Panic in Philly by Don Pendleton (1973)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year, I’ve read pulp novels from the Killmaster<\/a>, the Enforcer<\/a>, and Matt Helm<\/a> series, so why not try one from the granddaddy, Don Pendleton’s The Executioner<\/i>? It has the most books published about a single character, some 200 or 300 of them. So I found one at a book fair, cheap, and checked it out.<\/p>\n

The other two series offered more depth. Sugar’s “The Enforcer” has weird sci-fi elements and Objectivist speeches; the Killmaster gets the chicks; and Matt Helm channels Dean Martin, whether intentionally or not. The Executioner just runs around and kills Mafia.<\/p>\n

In this book, he goes to Philadelphia to take out a branch of the Family. He blows up a compound that used to be a bordello and then works his way into the home of the don. He kills a “specialist” that’s come to take care of the problem and then sets elements of the mob against each other while having a hand in, I dunno, 60 deaths? 70?<\/p>\n

On a side note, The Executioner (one of the main inspirations for Marvel Comic’s The Punisher, by the way) was a Vietnam veteran. Many characters from the pulp of the era and television of the next decade involved Vietnam veteran characters who were not suicidal nutbars or whatnot; instead, they were tough, efficient crime fighters of one sort or another. Where are the veterans as honorable crimefighters these days in popular culture?<\/p>\n

This book reads like a television script (and the book says they’re a major motion picture series coming!) with about that much depth of character (I know, it’s pulp, but this guy isn’t much more than a name holding various guns). I guess that’s what you get with a series written by dozens, but this is only #15, when Don Pendleton himself was writing them.<\/p>\n

Of all the series I’ve sampled this year, this is the least likely for a return visit; that’s not to say that it’s bad pulp, but it’s the worst of the pulp I’ve read this year.<\/p>\n

Books mentioned in this review:<\/b><\/p>\n