Able Team

Able Team is a series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers. It is a spin-off of the Executioner series created by Don Pendleton.

Able Team is one of two neutralization teams working for Stony Man, a top-secret anti-terrorist organization based in Virginia. Able Team is composed of Carl Lyons, Rosario Blancanales, and Hermann Schwarz. As with The Executioner, the Able Team novels have been written by a succession of authors under the pseudonym "Dick Stivers". In 1991, Gold Eagle combined Able Team with another Executioner spin-off series, Phoenix Force, and launched the Stony Man book series, which is still being published as of 2008. Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz are still active in the Stony Man series.

Able Team has a rather colorful past leading to becoming part of Stony Man. The group began during the Vietnam War as a penetration team assigned to deal with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. The name itself comes from a US Army designation of groups of soldiers designated team A, team B and team C. Instead of calling teams A, B and C words are attached to each to refer to the team. Team A is typically called Team Able, B is typically called Team Bravo and C is called Team Charlie. After Vietnam members of Team A ran a private investigation company called Able Group, before being recruited to Stony Man.

Herman Schwarz is an electronics specialist. He is skilled in dealing with anything electronic or mechanical, including booby traps and surveillance devices, which is why he is known as Gadgets.

A native of East L.A., Blancanales is the son of hard working Hispanic parents. An infiltration specialist, he is known as the Politician, or Pol for short, because of his ability to handle volatile situations among people, just like a politician. Once served as a volunteer for a Catholic youth group in his neighborhood. Has two sisters, Toni and Maria. Toni was in several of the early books, and was once taken prisoner by the local mafia.

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