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MR. MAJESTYK is Elmore Leonard's novelization of his original screenplay, both from 1974, and offers a one-time-only window into the master's approach to hackwork: he can do it in function, but he can't in form because he's simply too talented and too uch of a pro to phone it in. Yet, at 138 pages, there's nothing in the book that isn't in the screenplay, and it's clear Leonard, who was about to publish SWAG � the first of his true contemporary crime classics � wasn't interested in expanding on the characters or the story. But as it turns out, 138 pages is all he needs to give you compelling characters and nonstop conflict in a story in which everything makes sense.

The only thing missing from what would later turn out to be a signature Leonard novel is a more leisurely unpacking of Southwest melon grower Vincent Majestyk's past. In a twice-as-long novel, we'd meet friends, colleagues and enemies from Majestyk's past, and a simple story of revenge would turn into a complicated series of scam-driven set pieces. But one of Leonard's many gifts is giving the reader a little � just enough � to make more of out of it in their head, thus giving them a fully engaged experience. All Leonard gives us is that Majestyk, a decade before, was some kind of special badass in pre-Vietnam War Cambodia, and has some medals to go along with many lethal skills. We know he once had a wife and has a seven-year-old daughter he doesn't see, but we have no idea how he went from being a soldier to being a melon farmer, how he got the money, why he chose that life, etc. I would have liked to have known these things, but Leonard, in not providing them, essentially says: "You fill in those blanks." Which means he's showing me respect as reader, giving me room to engage with his creation, and I respect his respect.

I happened to re-read MR. MAJESTYK after re-reading David Morrell's FIRST BLOOD (1971), and a thought that would have never come to me had I not read those novels back-to-back came to me: Majestyk is basically John Rambo with about 30 percent more ability to make his way in the post-Vietnam world. Rambo drifts, apparently penniless despite his awards and successes, afraid of a place that has no place for him, Majestyk somehow finds his place while being an extreme embodiment of what would come to be the archetypal Leonard hero: quiet when others are loud, unresponsive to blather, quick to act, smarter than his apparent station in life would suggest, possessing of a sly sense of humor for those who bother to take the time to know him a little, and otherwise content to live his life and let others misjudge him based on what they see. All complete with a badass past, of course. Yet, he doesn't really fit in, and so people wonder and worry about him, usually too much for their own good, and trouble ensues. Trouble that only Majestyk (or Rambo) is equipped to handle.

The story, of course, is that, in trying to keep others from keeping him from hiring enough skilled workers to bring his melon crop to market before, Majestyk lands in jail and runs afoul of mob-connected contract killer Frank Renda, whose sense of superiority is so scorched by Majestyk's manhandling of him that he foolishly puts everything aside in his quest for vengeance. That sets up a strong FIRST BLOOD parallel: Frank Renda misjudges Majestyk until it's too late because all he sees is a melon farmer who momentarily, and implausibly, got the better of him, and thus is easy pickings for a stone pro like Renda. That's when we learn that because Majestyk doesn't react in any way Renda can predict, based on his past with his kind of predators and prey, he acts blindly, and winds up walking into a trap Majestyk has laid for him.

From FIRST BLOOD, as Col. Sam Trautman, Rambo's trainer, tells Will Teasle, the Kentucky deputy bent on murderous vengeance against the hippie "kid" who got the better of he and his men:

"Did you ever watch a chess match between an amateur and a pro? The amateur wins more pieces. Because the pro is used to playing with people who have a reason and pattern for every move, and here the amateur is shifting pieces all over the board, not really knowing what he’s up to, just trying to do the best he can with the little he understands. Well, the professional becomes so confused trying to see a nonexistent pattern and allow for it, that in no time he’s behind. In your case, you were in blind flight, and Rambo was behind you trying to anticipate what somebody like himself would do for protection. He would have expected you to lie in wait for him, try to ambush him, and that would have slowed him down until he understood, but then it would have been too late.�

In MR. MAJESTYK, Renda's hired guns make these observations: “You know what the trouble is?� the driver said. “The guy, the farmer, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He shouldn’t even still be around.� “That’s it,� the one in the back seat said. “If he knew anything he’d know enough not to be here. It’s like some clown never been in the ring before. He’s so clumsy, does so many wrong things, you can’t hit the son of a bitch.�

I don't kow if Leonard and Morrell were friends, or simply mutual admirers, even though it seems reasonable to think so as contemporaries and towering successes, but I'd bet anything that Leonard read FIRST BLOOD and it was lingering in his head to some extent as he created MR. MAJESTYK. That said, I want to knowhow and why John Rambo ended up a penniless drifter and Vincent Majestyk ended up owning a lot of farmable acreage and operating a business and fitting into post-Vietnam society well enough to get by.

That MR. MAJESTYK isn't interested in answering that question is no fault of his; he's got a hardboiled story of righteous vengeance and fatal hubris to tell, and he doesn't have the time or interest in anything else. In a later Leonard novel, he would have given us that much, and it would have made MR. MAJESTYK that much more interesting. But not necessarily better. It delivers the goods in its 138 pages, and there's nothing wrong with that.