First Blood

Once they weere soldiers. Rambo, the ragged and strange looking kid whose presence in the town is,unexplainably, a threat. Teasle, the Chief of Police of MAdison,Kentucky. Both have been trained to kill; Teasle in Korea, Rambo in Vietnam. They have learned different ways of death and of survival in two different wars. Now, without warning, they are deadly advesaries in a civilian combat that becomes a chase through the woods and mountains and caves above the town. As we follow them, we begin to understand their lives and the forces that drive them. We begin to understand that once a man has been trained as a killer, he remain a killer. Playing out once more the ritual of the chase, Rambo and Teasle revert to the impulse to murder.

First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of FIRST BLOOD to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with -- or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky.

Millions saw the Rambo movies, but those who haven't read the book that started it all are in for a surprise -- a critically acclaimed story of character, action, and compassion.