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.

The book begins with Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran, hitch hiking in Madison, Kentucky. He is picked up by Sheriff Teasle and dropped off at the city limits. Repeatedly coming back, Teasle arrests him and drives him to the station. He is charged with vagrancy and resisting arrest and is sentenced to 35 days in jail. Seeing the cold, wet, small cells gives Rambo a flashback of his days as a POW in Vietnam, and he fights off the cops as they attempt to cut his hair and shave him, beating one man and slashing another with the straight razor. He flees, steals a motorcycle, and hides in the nearby mountains. He becomes the focus of a manhunt that results in the deaths of many police officers and National Guardsmen.

In a climactic ending in the town where his conflict with Teasle began, Rambo is finally hunted down by Special Forces Captain Trautman and Teasle. Teasle, using his local knowledge, manages to surprise Rambo and shoots him in the chest, but is himself wounded in the stomach by a return shot. He then tries to pursue Rambo as he makes a final attempt to escape back out of the town. Both men are essentially dying by this point, but are driven by pride and a desire to justify their actions. Rambo, having found a spot he feels comfortable in, prepares to commit suicide by detonating a stick of dynamite against his body; however, he then sees Teasle following his trail and decides that it would be more honourable to continue fighting and be killed by Teasle's return fire.

Rambo fires at Teasle and, to his surprise and disappointment, hits him. For a moment he reflects on how he had missed his chance of a decent death, because he is now too weak to light the dynamite, but then suddenly feels the explosion he had expected - but in the head, not the stomach where the dynamite was placed. Rambo dies satisfied that he has come to a fitting end. Trautman returns to the dying Teasle and tells him that he has killed Rambo with his shotgun. Teasle relaxes, experiences a moment of affection for Rambo, then dies.

The book condemns the war in Vietnam and asserts that it had many adverse effects on soldiers who served there. It focuses on the acts of violence that Rambo commits and calls attention to the instinctive nature of these acts. This is especially evident in the portrayal of how Rambo and Police Chief Teasle come to respect - even like - each other, but are driven to continue fighting. Both men are incapable of compromise because they have been shaped by the wars they fought in. Teasle is portrayed as being as much of a victim of the Korean war (and his subsequent police career) as Rambo is of Vietnam.

Morrell decided to become a writer at the age of 16, after being inspired by the writing in the classic television series Route 66. Morrell moved to the United States in 1966 to study with Hemingway scholar Philip Young at Pennsylvania State University, where he would eventually receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in American literature. During his time at Penn State he also met science fiction writer Philip Klass, better known by the pseudonym William Tenn, who taught the basics of writing fiction.