The A Team

The A Team #1: “The A Team” by Charles Heath (Ron Renald). This first novel spends all but about fifty pages of the book introducing the A Team members, and the people involved in the story, as well as the set up. Taking a page from “The Magnificent 7”, modern bandits are harassing villages demanding goods from them. When newspaper reporter, Al Massey hears about the problem he goes to San Rio Blanco to get the story for his paper, but the bandit chief, Malavida Valdez learns what he’s doing; he rides into town demanding the villagers turn Massey over to him. The reporter tries to escape, but is captured, and now another reporter – and friend of Massey’s - Amy Allen wants to find him. The newspaper refuses to do anything so she hires the A Team. There is a lot going on in the first part of the book, but the A Team doesn’t arrive in San Rio Blanco until the last fifty pages and the battle between the A Team and the bandits begins in earnest. This was a fun story, with plenty of action, and captured the old TV series very well. I remembered some scenes in the book from the actual episode, though it has been many years since I watched them. The writing is good, and the pace is excellent, making for a fast read.

Small But Deadly Wars

The A-Team #2: “Small, But Deadly Wars” by Charles Heath (Ron Renald). This is actually two short novels based on two TV episodes, “A Small And Deadly War” and “Black Day At Bad Rock” (Yeah, I get it, taken from “Bad Day Black Rock” – ha). In the first, Police Inspector Ed Maloney puts the word out that he’s looking for the A-Team. They hear his story before taking the case. Four SWAT officers are in the murder business, taking assignments to kill for pay. Maloney has discovered their secret, but he and his family are threatened if he reports them. He wants the A-Team to get the goods on the men. The second is about a biker gang in the white slavery business. They’ve set up a trailer park with prostitutes, young girls they’ve forced into the game. Amy is working on a story with a private detective, Simon Commonble, to bust the business, and the A-Team is heading to Bad Rock to assist. When they arrive, they find the D.A. has already acted, and the park was raided, and the gang leader arrested and locked up in the local jail, but the bikers escaped. The A-Team runs into the bikers on a narrow road, and B.A. is shot. They rush him to town and find a doctor. She takes care of the injured man, but calls the local sheriff. Hannibal Smith and Face are arrested and locked up also. The sheriff runs their prints, and now Military Intelligence finds out the A-Team is in jail and send Colonel Lynch and MPs to collect them. Meanwhile the bikers are coming to town to rescue their leader. This was a fun book, and read like the old TV series, it was like seeing the episodes again in my mind. I can understand why the fans of men’s action novels passed on this series, there is no sex, profanity, are killing in the book. Just a lot of good action. The only seriously injured is B.A. Well worth the read.