The Bullet Stops Here by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Quite a Johnstone misstep. Johnstone editors needed to reign in this writer and have some re-reading of original W.W. Johnstone books. This was more bad pulp novel than typical Johnstone quality fare. ‘Melichus’?

Hard to write there is a plot involved. This is basically a long, MatthewReilly-esque chase book. Except with nearly non-stop fighting, explosions, bloody body parts and plenty of death. Of the 275 Johnstone books I’ve read, this may be the bloodiest I’ve read. There’s really no need to have the repetitive pieces of skull references.

A major complaint I have of this volume is the prevalence of Valley-girl-isms so prominent in today’s vernacular. Not to be heard back then. A lot of this written in the dialogue of Luke Jensen. Luke sounded more a decedent of Reese Witherspoon than Smoke Jensen.
There are a few times when the Luke dialogue swings from Valley-girl to a diatribe more likely heard from a Harvard graduate.

Something odd I noted throughout the book is the excessive use of actions using the letter ‘s’. ‘Stumbled’, ‘scrambled’, ‘swarmed’, ‘scurried’, more ‘stumbled’, ‘stutter-stepped’, etc.

One thing this book does do is move. There is very little of the excesses I find in more recent Johnstone books. Thing, is the character development doesn’t exist, as it does in most all Johnstone books, and I found I really didn’t care whatever happened to whoever.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 2 out of ten points.
Of all the Johnstone books I’ve read, this is one of, maybe, 5 I’ve given such a low rating.

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