In the world of westerns, any book by the Johnstones is a sure winner. This is no exception. This is the first book in a new family of series, but you always run across another member of the many Johnstone families in his books. The back stories are always detailed, you can see and taste the dust as the stage coach rolls through the desert, and his characters well developed. All of the main characters have a high sense of integrity. The "good" guys are more than just good. It always seems as if the author drops one character off in a little town only to pick the next character up for an adventure.

As a stage coach shotgun rider, our main character has seen many dangerous stops and starts. His quick reflexes and dedication to his job mean he will see a run through to the end, this one is no exception, but boy is this trip a doozy.


I have yet to read a Johnstone book that I thought didn't deserve 5 stars.

In Johnstone's Riding Shotgun (Penguin Random House 2019), first in a new Red Ryan Western series by the king of Westerns, the free-spirited, quick-thinking Red Ryan is one of the best stage coach guards in the West, especially when teamed with his favorite driver, Buttons Muldoon. As a team they have a better chance than any other team to drive a stage from Point A to Point B but when they are hired to protect a stage going to Fort Bliss--carrying three women and one obnoxious Easterner--even they declare it too dangerous. One of the women convinces Red to throw caution to the wind so that she can be with her Army husband in his time of need. What she doesn't tell him is that her reason for making the journey despite the danger has nothing to do with love. They haven't traveled far before they find the Army platoon that was tasked to protect them on the long trip has been slaughtered by renegade Apache. When they decide to proceed anyway, those same Apaches zero in on the stagecoach.

Indians are only the beginning. Before Red and Buttons finally free themselves of their passengers, they will face outlaws, traitors, near-death experiences, and more death-defying events you'll have to read the book to find out about.

This is a fun read that celebrates the men and women who settled the West. Red embodies that breed of maverick early American who thrived in this wide-open law-challenged land and were rewarded for their hard work with a good life lived to the hilt. I suspect that the hardships that were part and parcel of surviving this world couldn't have been done without a large dose of humility and a relentless sense of humor.

--this will be reviewed on my blog, WordDreams 8-30-19

Riding Shotgun is the first installment from the Red Ryan series. I really liked it and give it five stars.

Having read Burnt Offering, one of my favourites, I decided to check out what other books Johnston has published which seems to be a long list of Westerns. As this book was on offer from NetGalley, I thought I take a dive into the world of the cowboy opera.

Westerns are not my strong point and have never really read this subgenre of fiction as I normally do not enjoy the genre when it is on film or as a television series but I found this book to be quite entertaining and kept me involved through its entirety.

The characters are well developed and although there seems to be some dialogue that would fit well within a John Wayne film, it seems to fit in well with the over all context of the novel. It is an adventure story that keeps the reader involved and I was pleasantly surprised by the overall enjoyment of the book

It looks like Johnston has adapted this genre and as he has written more within this genre than his previous horror entries, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it went beyond my expectations. Exciting, non stop action and great character development kept me involved until the very end. Overall, it made me interested in the Western as a whole and made me want to read more. Fun book that delivers on all aspects.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

Red Ryan, as a stagecoach guard, he’s faced holdups, ambushes, and all-out attacks from every kill-crazy outlaw, Indian, and prairie rat.

I really liked Red and Buttons but they were rather one-dimensional stereotypical characters.

2.75☆

Some entertaining bits but not the best work by this author. Maybe not the best idea to come up with scores of new series instead of making sure the old ones are good. Still I'm a sucker for westerns.

William W. Johnstone's books, whether written by the man himself or by the son writing under his father's name, are some of my husband's favorites. As I started this title, I could see why. There's charm and humor and action, and a lead character that's fairly likable.

Here's the problem, though: there's also racism, and sexism. There are one-dimensional characters who behave in totally expected ways. There's painful dialog coming at the reader from left and right. There are characters that are introduced for no apparent reason other than to make something happen at a given point in the story. And nearly every fight scene at some point will contain the following: "Years later, when so-and-so wrote about the Battle of XYZ, he would say that this was the moment that Red realized his mistake / Current Bad Guy decided that dying was better than living / blah blah blah." The first time? Cute! The third? Not so much.

Now, I'm not the target audience for this author or genre, and I'm well-aware of this. And there's always a possibility that, when reading a book that clearly was written for a specific audience, the reader is going to dislike the book. It takes a special book to convert a reader to a new genre, and I have to be honest: for me, this isn't that book. But, and this is an important "but," I didn't hate it. In fact, there were plenty of moments that I enjoyed. Red Ryan is a likable character, and his sidekick, Patrick "Buttons" Muldoon is tremendously likable, as well. They aren't complicated in any way, shape, or form, but there's no reason for them to be. This is a shoot-em-up Western, with good guys and bad guys and no in-betweens. It's exactly what it's supposed to be, and I'd say that's high praise.

ARC copy generously provided by NetGalley and the publisher. Thanks so much for the opportunity to read something new and different and, most of the time, fun!