I was so excited after reading my first book by this author that I had very high expectations for this one. I should have realized from the very title the direction this book was to take. The entire book was literally nothing but one very bloody and descriptive battle after another with no real storyline. I didn't feel like there was any depth to the story at all. I gave this title a 2 star because the author is truly good at description, and does make the story easy to visualize with his word pictures. However, I read thru the entire story just seeking the storyline coming to a closure by the end. This did not happen. When Preacher finally found the individuals he was seeking, we just got a rather grand finale of battles, and then no reward of any kind for sticking with the story in hopes of the daughter and her fiancé being found and brought home to her father. I didn't necessarily expect a "happily ever after" ending, but I did expect at least a minimal amount of closure. After all, many believed the fiancé had thrown in with the bad guys thru most of the book. When the truth came out, I personally would have loved to see how this affected the relationships going forward. I don't want to give a complete description of the ending simply because someone else may want to read this and have some level of surprise left for them. After discovering this author, I truly am disappointed that my second experience was so entirely different from my first. I will likely read one more of his books before making my final determination of whether to follow this author any longer.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Kensington Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Preacher's Carnage is another great read by the Johnstones. The book is going to get four stars from me. I liked it.

Any book that has JA Johnstone as an author is a guaranteed 5 star read. The Johnstone's have a long legacy of western series that tell an excellent story of life and death in the old West. Preacher is one of my favorite Johnstone characters. As long as they keep writing his life stories, I'll keep reading them.
Preacher's Carnage is book #27 in this series....yes 27 and I've read them all. This makes an excellent stand alone story by the background built by the previous books will make the experience much, better. You'll learn than Preacher is more often driven by sense of righting wrongs and providing "Justice". He often shows up in the other Johnstone series to lend a hand when the characters need it. He's travelled the frontier many times and is well known along any trail he happens to cross. His companions are his dog and his horse and his memories. A legend that the Johnstones use frequently to educate and entertain us.

Preacher has been hired to find a stolen shipment of gold and bring the thieves in, dead or alive. Not his usual type of adventure but there are some good people involved that could be hurt. Preacher has never been afraid to bring the fight to his enemies so you'll get a good look at them. Along the way, there are a couple of side stories involving historical figures. This is a 5 star read only because I can't give it more. An excellent escape from my daily schedule into the wild, wild west.

Not the best in the series but I found it entertaining that Bigfoot Wallace and John Coffey Hays was a part of the story as well as the introduction of the Paterson Colt. I always enjoy a western don't know why? Maybe it's the inner child or something. The best part of the Preacher books is that he is able through a long wandering life to meet all kinds of people and trouble. As usual I have to thank #Pinnacle #KensingtonBooks and #Netgalley for letting me read this book by the Johnstones.

Preacher’s Carnage, another amazing gritty tale of the mountain man known as “Preacher”, this time on assignment to tract down and save a lovely señorita, who seeks to find her lost fiancé and prove his innocence, after he goes missing with a wagon train and a shipment of gold coins. Of course it’s not the money he’s interested in, but the damsel in distress, and burning desire to find the truth....what happened to the fiancé? Did he double-cross his employer, and the lovely woman to steal the gold? Is he dead?

So starts the journey for truth and justice - mountain man style accompanied by his partner, a wolf-dog, named “Dog”.. There is plenty of adventure here, trust and distrust, some new friends, enemies, bands of Indians, brutally savage Comanches, and violent Mexican bandits - Yep, I’d say Preacher has his hands full - seems like he doesn’t have a prayer........

Historical Notes at the end of book were interesting. Some parts of the story use the names of authentic and known characters of history.

5 STARS

My thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion! All opinions are my own.

In William and J. A. Johnstone’s’ book, Preacher’s Carnage, there is another installment of the mountain man book series. This one is number 25 in the ongoing series about the individuals who helped forge the western landscape of a new and developing country. It is a delightful read.

This edition is full of the typical twists and turns that one might expect in a Johnstone written novel. Getting the Preacher riled up enough to follow through is pretty easy but goes well beyond the brutal attack on a wagon train moving along the Santa Fe Trail. All that carnage is not enough but the intervention of a potential fiancé of one of the missing members of the train, who just happens to be a beautiful Spanish senorita, is the tipping point. Preacher is not normally a vengeful man ---but in this case he may be pushed too far.

There is a reward but that is far secondary to just doing the right thing Sometimes doing the right things call for partnering with some marginal characters. There are banditos, as well as Indios, who get involved as Preacher works to find out the truth about the missing gold on the train which was attacked. Some erstwhile allies may be more two-faced than can be imagined. Preacher must always be on alert for a double-cross to happen.

Danger seems to lurk around every bush and to be more prevalent that the spines on the local plants—just waiting to poke and cause pain. In true Western spirit, the truth is discovered and those needing to be punished are caught.

A novel that is fun to read and one that the pages seem to turn themselves and the next part of this fun Western adventure reveals itself. A definite must read in the series of books from the Johnstone dynamo.

Preacher (no last name and this one assigned by the Indians) is one of the famed American mountain men who lived off the land in the American Rockies during the early 1800s. Preacher's name is known to Indians and settlers alike as a man of physical and mental power with a deep well of determination, and one who is almost impossible to kill. The mountain man, though, has a trait I don’t often see in mountain men: He realizes money has a purpose in his life. In this book, Preacher's Carnage (Pinnacle 2020), Book 27 of the Preacher/The First Mountain Man series, Preacher agrees to retrieve a shipment of gold from thieves partly because of the reward but also because a young woman is in trouble.

As always with Johnstone books, this one includes great authentic phrases that put you right there:

“I was fixin’ to light a shuck for the mountains pretty soon."

"...don’t cotton much to bein’ crowded.”

". . . if this was his day to die . . . he (Preacher) could think of no better way to leave this world than with his loyal friend (his dog) at his side and those bloody blades in his hands..."

I enjoy all of this author's books, none more than the venerable Preacher series, sharing his long ago life in the mountains and off the land.