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Code Name #3
Code Name: Death
Leading an elite strike force of law enforcement and intelligence professionals, ex-CIA agent John Barron is hired by billionaire Marist J. Quinncannon to find out who killed his teenage granddaughter, and John and his team are plunged into a world of sex and murder where a deranged snuff film kingpin reigns supreme. Original.
336 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published May 1, 2001
65 people want to read
About the author
William W. Johnstone
1,041 books1,392 followersWilliam W. Johnstone is the #1 bestselling Western writer in America and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of hundreds of books, with over 50 million copies sold. Born in southern Missouri, he was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. He left school at fifteen to work in a carnival and then as a deputy sheriff before serving in the army. He went on to become known as "the Greatest Western writer of the 21st Century." Visit him online at WilliamJohnstone.net.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 21, 2024
Johnstone didn't always write horror. In fact, his horror output is nothing at all compared to his Men's Adventure and Western output. Regardless, everything about Code Name: Death is 100% stock Johnstone tropes, just applied to a story about snuff films. You've got your squad of military-trained badasses led by a former CIA spook who is just so good at his job he notices every potential ambush and is always double-plus-ultra-good prepared for every situation. You've got your casual, good ol' boy racism against everybody with a skin tone darker than talcum powder. Johnstone loves to involve the Devil in his plots, so this time one of his antagonists is a guy whose last name is literally 'Satan' spelled backwards. And you've got extreme topics like child pornography and snuff films which, in typical Johnstone style, are handled with all the subtlety of someone trying to cram a fourteen-inch dildo into a 7-inch onahole.
This, by the way, is precisely why I read Johnstone. To be fair, it's also precisely why you probably shouldn't. But hey, some people like 'so bad it's good' movies, some people like 'so bad it's good' video games, and some people like 'so bad it's Johnstone' novels, and it's not my fault I fall into all three camps. Guilty as charged, and Code Name: Death gave me my money's worth.
Or maybe a little less. Because, honestly, given his horror writing background, I expected more from a story about child trafficking and murder-on-film. There's quite a bit of both in this book, along with Johnstone's typical screeds against liberals, Democrats, journalists, The Gays, and any nation where English is not commonly spoken. But everything in this book is of the 'don't show, just tell' school, which is supremely disappointing for a book which deals with such serious topics. Hell, Johnstone spends time explaining how the underage victim in a pornographic movie called "Oval Oriface" bangs everyone from random Secret Service agents to the President's wife, to a Bill Clinton lookalike (who, naturally leaves some conspicuous stains all over the girl's blue dress), but doesn't really show us any of it. People die from getting shot, and Johnstone pulls the camera away after the shooter pulls the trigger. This is the same guy who, thirty years earlier, spent page after page after page explaining all the different ways his protagonist hero-fucked the evil Witch character into not only changing her religion but delivering the child conceived during that union, and the best the Johnstone of today could give us is the equivalent of, "He put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger." That's just sad, especially since 8mm had already been out for two years and set a pretty good target for how to depict this sort of thing.
There's one exception to this, which I thought was well done. One victim of the snuff film ring dies on camera by having her head cut off with a giant axe, and while Johnstone doesn't linger, he does set up a decent visual of the victim's last sight being her own body, blood spurting from the stump of her neck, as her head rolls down and settles on the floor, staring up at it. Now, where was this with all the rest of the times the bodies hit the floor? Johnstone seemingly shot his wad with that one scene, and unfortunately still had half the book to go.
The other thing I noticed, and maybe Johnstone has always been like this but my brain just failed its autocorrect check, is that everyone in the book talks like an android. Nobody actually sounds like a real person. There isn't a single contraction in anybody's dialog, and this makes the whole thing seem like the literary equivalent of a bunch of people who don't understand acting trying to film a stage play written by someone who doesn't understand scriptwriting.
A normal person would say a line like this: "Please don't hurt me! I'll do anything you want, just don't kill me!"
Johnstone, on the other hand, would write it in this book as: "Oh please do not hurt me. I will do anything that you want, just do not kill me!"
That's not an exaggeration. This is how every character in the book speaks. It's equal parts awkward and hilarious, and if that's not why you're reading Johnstone then this review probably isn't up to your liking either, but I'd be derelict in my duties if I failed to point it out.
Code Name: Death is not a good book. Of course it's not: it's a Johnstone book. But if that's not what you want to read, then you can find other thriller writers, some of whom are even in the Men's Adventure genre, who dealt with the idea of revenging themselves upon a bunch of pornographers in a far more competent style. If, on the other hand, you want to see what happens when someone uses the literary equivalent of a railroad spike where a toothpick would be more appropriate, then you're in good hands with my buddy Willy J. He'd definitely hate me calling him that, but then again he's been dead for twenty years and I have not, so who's laughing now?
This, by the way, is precisely why I read Johnstone. To be fair, it's also precisely why you probably shouldn't. But hey, some people like 'so bad it's good' movies, some people like 'so bad it's good' video games, and some people like 'so bad it's Johnstone' novels, and it's not my fault I fall into all three camps. Guilty as charged, and Code Name: Death gave me my money's worth.
Or maybe a little less. Because, honestly, given his horror writing background, I expected more from a story about child trafficking and murder-on-film. There's quite a bit of both in this book, along with Johnstone's typical screeds against liberals, Democrats, journalists, The Gays, and any nation where English is not commonly spoken. But everything in this book is of the 'don't show, just tell' school, which is supremely disappointing for a book which deals with such serious topics. Hell, Johnstone spends time explaining how the underage victim in a pornographic movie called "Oval Oriface" bangs everyone from random Secret Service agents to the President's wife, to a Bill Clinton lookalike (who, naturally leaves some conspicuous stains all over the girl's blue dress), but doesn't really show us any of it. People die from getting shot, and Johnstone pulls the camera away after the shooter pulls the trigger. This is the same guy who, thirty years earlier, spent page after page after page explaining all the different ways his protagonist hero-fucked the evil Witch character into not only changing her religion but delivering the child conceived during that union, and the best the Johnstone of today could give us is the equivalent of, "He put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger." That's just sad, especially since 8mm had already been out for two years and set a pretty good target for how to depict this sort of thing.
There's one exception to this, which I thought was well done. One victim of the snuff film ring dies on camera by having her head cut off with a giant axe, and while Johnstone doesn't linger, he does set up a decent visual of the victim's last sight being her own body, blood spurting from the stump of her neck, as her head rolls down and settles on the floor, staring up at it. Now, where was this with all the rest of the times the bodies hit the floor? Johnstone seemingly shot his wad with that one scene, and unfortunately still had half the book to go.
The other thing I noticed, and maybe Johnstone has always been like this but my brain just failed its autocorrect check, is that everyone in the book talks like an android. Nobody actually sounds like a real person. There isn't a single contraction in anybody's dialog, and this makes the whole thing seem like the literary equivalent of a bunch of people who don't understand acting trying to film a stage play written by someone who doesn't understand scriptwriting.
A normal person would say a line like this: "Please don't hurt me! I'll do anything you want, just don't kill me!"
Johnstone, on the other hand, would write it in this book as: "Oh please do not hurt me. I will do anything that you want, just do not kill me!"
That's not an exaggeration. This is how every character in the book speaks. It's equal parts awkward and hilarious, and if that's not why you're reading Johnstone then this review probably isn't up to your liking either, but I'd be derelict in my duties if I failed to point it out.
Code Name: Death is not a good book. Of course it's not: it's a Johnstone book. But if that's not what you want to read, then you can find other thriller writers, some of whom are even in the Men's Adventure genre, who dealt with the idea of revenging themselves upon a bunch of pornographers in a far more competent style. If, on the other hand, you want to see what happens when someone uses the literary equivalent of a railroad spike where a toothpick would be more appropriate, then you're in good hands with my buddy Willy J. He'd definitely hate me calling him that, but then again he's been dead for twenty years and I have not, so who's laughing now?
November 7, 2025
Garage sale find. Low budget detective thriller. I found the story details disturbing. Adult.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews