Bloodland

by William W. Johnstone

Returning home to Lewiston, Nebraska, after serving as a mercenary for many years, Key Lessard must save his town and the world when a diabolical neo-Nazi group forms a violent army bent on destroying anyone who has not joined their twisted regiment. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

William Wallace Johnstone was a prolific American author, mostly of western, horror and survivalist novels.

Born and raised in southern Missouri, Johnstone was the youngest of four children. His father was a minister and his mother a school teacher. He quit school when he was fifteen and worked in a carnival and as a deputy sheriff. He later served in the Army and, upon returning to civilian life, worked in radio broadcasting for 16 years.

Johnstone started his writing career in 1970, but did not have any works published until 1979 (The Devil's Kiss) and became a full-time writer in 1980. He wrote close to two hundred books in numerous genres, including suspense and horror. His main publication series were Mountain Man, The First Mountain Man, Ashes and Eagles and his own personal favorite novel was The Last of the Dog Team (1980). He also authored two novels under the pseudonym William Mason.

Johnstone had lived for many years in Shreveport, Louisiana, yet died in Knoxville, TN, at the age of 65. J. A. Johnstone is continuing William W. Johnstone's series.

Reviews

[Judith Sonnet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Key Lessard has returned to his Nebraska hometown in search of peace and quiet. That's not what he finds. Instead, the farmers have joined a radical, far-right, racist hate-group, with connections that run deep and intimidation tactics that silence those who oppose them. Being an ex-mercenary, Key is immediately targeted, pushed, and prodded. But unlike his friends and family... Key knows how to fight back!
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Violent, brash, and angry... BLOODLAND is the epitome of a William W. Johnstone book. It's constantly railing on politics, it's exceedingly offensive, and it's action packed. Let's be clear, this is a VERY trashy book... but it ain't a boring one! Every page drips with machismo and boomer rage. It's like if your grandpa decided to try his hand at writing after Grandma told him to get off of Facebook.
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I don't know why I, a queer leftist, find these books so damn fascinating. But also, I can and often do separate my political beliefs from what I'm reading. If I didn't, I wouldn't be watching 80's movies and reading the paperbacks that came out to compete with those flicks.
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I don't love talking politics, especially since I like focusing on the books by their own merits and not how they reflect or don't reflect my worldview... but you simply CANNOT divorce a Johnstone book from Johnstone's beliefs. And just when you think he's done, he's got another rant about American values and left-leaning journalism to shove into your face. Although, this book does alter the mold. Rather than being right vs. left, BLOODLAND is right vs. far right. And I can appreciate that!
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I'll always read Johnstone. Whether I agree with it or not --and I don't for much of Johnstone's cases-- I read it with a mouthful of popcorn, a hard drink, and good humor. Because politics aside, this is a near-exact replica of the films Canon was producing at the time. The lead is a beefcake who punches his way through every problem, and the end is an all out war between a militia and an army of vigilantes. By the time you get through the ridiculous plot, you're rewarded with a stream of smirking justice. Bad guys get blown up, shot, and strangled... and it's very satisfying.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Crusty. Angry. Big boomer energy.
Basically the exact same formula as every Johnstone novel that wasn’t a western.

And yet there is something about Johnstone’s unmistakable diatribe against everyone and everything that made Bloodland actually kind of fun.

Ridiculously pro-right wing/veteran pride, anti-government, and unapologetic to the max, this book is every underdog and vigilante’s wet dream.

Obviously Johnstone’s writing was never cream of the crop but there is something intriguing about such an angry and crotchety author penning a book such as this. And you honestly can’t beat that typically over the top Zebra cover.

[J.J. Salas · Rating 4 out of 5]

🍍🍍🍍🍍/5

We were warned in Judith Sonnet’s book club that this one was going to be some crazy toxic-masculinity-soaked, big-boomer-energied, right-wing vs. SUPER right-wing shit. Welp, she did not exaggerate whatsoever. It was hard to not roll my eyes at everything Key, our MC did. The patron saint of machismo. I was kinda shocked that he didn’t bite a chunk out of a grizzly bear for breakfast & then chew gunpowder instead of brushing his teeth afterwards. Yet somehow about halfway through, I started to like him. The whole killing nazis/super-mega-ultra-fascists helped, of course. I “watched” this whole book with a Grindhouse lense, which made it more fun. I also was reading everyone’s lines in a Nebraskan accent, which is funny because I don’t know what a Nebraskan accent sounds like? Learning about “hamburger whores” & how casually you could ship guns/ammo/grenades back then added to the charm of the book. I was just waiting for the satisfying bloody final battle, which I got thankfully. Love him or hate him, I like a good pineapple surprise & Key was lobbing grenades left & right towards the end. You don’t go to a hamburger whore for a hug & you don’t go to a Johnstone for clean, wholesome fun. Enjoy the ride. 🤠

[DJMikeG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, man! This book is so awesome. I tried to read Johnstone's horror novels a couple of times before and they were startlingly terrible. At least the ones I tried. This book was just pure, nose breaking, balls kicking, jaw cracking action from start to finish. I was hooked. Johnstone may not be a master of prose but reading this book was exactly like watching some bad ass 80s action movie on TV late at night, aka heaven. Beyond the visceral thrills, this book also had some poignant things to say about what happens to good people when they are pushed too far, and how they turn to hatred. But that ain't what we came for, what we came for is badass mercenary Key Lessard waging war on a secret Neo Nazi army in his hometown in rural Nebraska, and that is what we get. This book was a joy to read. Is it fine literature? No. Is it a rollicking good time that is surprisingly much better than it had to be? Yes.

[Kerrie Hatcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main character reminds me of a Rambo type person. If you want a lot of action, blood, revenge, and things like that, you have the right book. The enemy is easily recognizable and the main character is out to defeat him.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are looking for great literary fiction, you won't find it in William J. Johnstone's Bloodland. Not that this book pretends to be anything of the sort, but with its two-dimensional characters, a backstory that doesn't even interest one in suspending disbelief, and a tone that often slides into preachy right-wing diatribes about how "old-fashioned values" are the answer to all of society's ills, it will never be mistaken as anything other than a cheap piece of pulp fiction.

The main character is Key Lessard, a Vietnam vet who has become a rich and famous mercenary, fighting in hot spots all over the world. He has all of the highly-placed government connections you'd expect in a work of fiction like this one. You know: the sort of connections who, on the basis of a telephone call, can ship him crates of explosives, hand grenades, and automatic weapons so that he can wage a private war on American soil.

Key returns to his family's home in rural Nebraska in the mid-1980s to discover that almost everyone has lost their farms. And the darn kids all over town are rebellious hellions with no respect for their elders. Oh, and a group of neo-NAZIs has taken over the county.

The answer, of course, is to revert back to those "old-fashioned values". And wage an "A-Team-meets-Rambo" style one-man war all over the country.

Which isn't to say that the whole book is horrible. The action scenes are vivid and full of, you know: action. But when it gets preachy, this book really gets preachy. Take this gem, in which Lessard's nieces and nephews explain why they haven't become miscreants like their cousins:


"How'd you resist all the dope that's floating around?" Key asked.

"Most of us didn't," Cassie admitted. "I tried it. But you see, Uncle Key, the difference is that I . . . we . . . .[sic] could come home and talk about it with our parents. We knew we weren't going to get backhanded across the room or screamed at. We could just sit down and talk it out."

Key nodded. "And why do you think that is?"

"Old-fashioned values," fifteen-year-old Walt said quickly. "There is nothing for us to rebel about. Oh," he said and grinned, "maybe music. Sometimes."

The other young people laughed.

Well, golly. It's so . . . simple! Why didn't we see it all before?

In between the sermons about farmers doing themselves in by living too high off the hog and the gubmint being the source of everyone's problems and minorities being to blame for hostility against them because they're too "vocal", there's a decent plot about a group of slick-talking white supremacists in ties creating a shadow organization to slowly gain control of the country, one county at a time. And if Johnstone had stuck to this plot, he could have had a passable "First Blood" type story. But, sadly, the plot seems to be an excuse to drive home the point that not everyone who is a conservative is a white supremacist. This is done with even more preachy dialog and a repetition of the phrase "racists are cowards" to the point where it seems the author doth protest too much.

And on top of it all, the ending is less than satisfying. We learn the white supremacist organization has ties very high in the federal government, but this angle never gets explored. Instead, the ending falls into soap opera clichés.

Bloodland fell into my lap when I bought a box of miscellaneous books at a garage sale. There were twenty or thirty books in the box, and I paid a buck for the whole thing. I can honestly say I got my money's worth, but I would have felt ripped off if this was the only book in the box.

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of the few dozen Johnstone Clan novels I've read, few were published during William Johnstone's lifetime. This one was. Considering the few books written at the time by him, I figure this one may have been written by Johnstone himself and not one of the herd of ghost writers to come.

Unfortunately, this is the worst of the books I've read possibly actually written by Johnstone. I can read a formula cast in the structure of the book. At the time he was also producing the Smoke Jensen series and this book too much reflects those. You could swap out the hero for Jensen. Not that it ruins the novel, just that it indicates Johnstone's later actions of employing ghost writers considering how much he was able to produce, apparently, plot-wise.

The entire premise is hard to believe, which means the writer failed to connect his plot with the reader. Basically involves bad guys taking over a town with a vision of taking over the world in their way. The idea of the seduction of the townspeople seems more real today than possible in 1985. Still more than far fetched.

One of the most important things to take from this book is Johnstone's writing of the farming industry and what was and would be happening. Younger people will have a great deal of trouble understanding what he is writing in that what he wrote has not only happened but is so buried in the commercial maelstrom, that the idea of the independent family farms that produce for the U.S. to such a high level will be hard to perceive.

The writing in the book is less than standard. The setting is described at points, but I never got the feel of the place as I have in so many other Johnstone Clan novels. That character construction is also far less than the usual stellar efforts of a Johnstone novel. The most interesting characters, to me, is the father and one named 'Lila', but little is done with them.

I figure this book is a sign of the stress of producing too many books at the same time by Johnstone.

Bottom line: I don't recommend this book. 6 out of 10 points.

[Matt B · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is possibly the worst-written book I've ever come across. Male fantasy garbage of the most ridiculous type.

[Bradley Herrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book