This was a good book for me because I wanted something different to read at the time. Here you get a good western and I always know that the characters and storyline are going to be strong for the time and once again this book did not disappoint what I was looking for. Was able to read in one afternoon.

There is no such thing as a bad Johnstone western. Each series is built around main characters whose belief in the law and family is absolute, even if they've had to be reformed to get there. From Preacher, the original mountain man to the Jensen family to Perly Gates, to.....well, you get the point. Many times, characters from one series will show up in another as supporting hands. The communities are true to the era, clothing, guns, food and troubles are all what you'd find if you looked them up in the history books. No two stories are the same, each character or set of characters is unique and so are their stories. The writing is skillful, readers are pulled into the story and you will laugh and cry right along with the characters. I made the mistake of picking up a Johnstone western my uncle was reading. Ive been hooked ever since. Now I share them with my reading family and will continue as long as new Johnstones are released.

This is the gentlest of settings of the Johnstone Clan series. The writing is so light, I wonder if this might be a new trend of Johnstone books. Maybe it's just this one. Though I seem to be noticing the less hard nosed approach in other Johnstone books. This is definitely a book to appeal more to the female. Lots of family doings and a plot driven by emotion.
Also, this book has a tenor not unlike the Johnstone "Stoneface" Finnegan new series. A retired copper with bad guys looming for retribution.

Thus, the plot here. Pretty standard Johnstone stuff, but couched in a strong family theme. Then bad guys come. Children threatened. Etc.
Making this work are the strong Johnstone major characters. The family folk are standard. There's an awkwardly handled pregnant girl and the guy involved.
The book had a feeling of a lesson from social services involving family issues. Quite a turn from other Johnstone titles.

There are the standard Johnstone battles. But there are less of those and most are mild in comparison.
The entire book had a weakness to it and this is a rare johnstone entry, of the couple hundred I've read, where I didn't real care about the ending.
Since this is a NetGalley.com offering and the second book is available, I'll continue t that and hope for a different ghost writer.

Bottom line: I don't recommend this book. 5 out of ten points.

This was an excellent book. I just love western books and this one didn't disappoint. It was such a fantastic story line and I just loved the lengths they had to go to to get the murder and prove the main suspect innocent. I'm them days it certainly wasn't innocent until proven guilty. I really enjoyed the characters but I didn't fully connect with them for some reason. I lost a little interest at times but I think it was because the pace of the book was a bit slower than the last w.w Johnstone book I read. It was more of a whodunit western book. You could always try a sample of this book from many online retailers to see if this book is your cup of tea. I still recommend this book to lovers of mystery western book lovers.

Many thanks to the author and publishers for creating another great mystery adventure book. I will definitely be looking out for more titles by this author. 

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/brannigan-s-land-by-w-w-j-a-johnstone-kensington-press-4-stars either under my name or ladyreading365

This is a great western book by William W. Johnstone. I really had a good time reading and couldn't put the book down. Highly recommend!

William Johnston's Brannigan's Land (Pinnacle Books 2022), Book 1 in the series, Brannigan's Land Western, starts out as a pretty typical excellent Western story. MacKenna Brannigan, daughter of a wealthy well-established rancher, falls for a seeming cad cowboy with the singular skill of being about to talk to horses--gain their trust. The two are engaged, but he leaves her to father a child by a neighboring rancher's daughter. MacKenna wants to hate him, but her heart won't cooperate. As she is still healing, he is accused of killing the father of that girl though he swears he didn't.  MacKenna believes him and begs her father (Ty Brannigan), a former lawman with an excellent reputation for truth and justice, to prove the boy's innocence. Ty reluctantly agrees, but his efforts are complicated by two events. One, thugs are trying to kill him--why he doesn't know--and two, a former girlfriend shows up in town to warn him he is in danger.

This story has all the pieces of a great western, but something I can't quite put my finger on is missing. Drama? Charisma? Not sure. It is well written, but I found it too predictable. Nothing surprised me and I found myself hurrying through pages I should have savored. Maybe that’s my fault, because I've read too many westerns. Check out these lines:

"Way, way back . . . deep into a past he hadn’t thought about in years. A past he’d never thought he’d plumb again."

"Stalcup winced, twitching his right brown eye and lifting the same left corner of his dark-mustached mouth."

Are they ordinary or great prose? If the latter, I should have given this 5/5 instead of 4/5.

Ty Brannigan in Wyoming is a great new character in the western genre. I really liked this ageing ex lawman and his family in Brannigan's Land by William W. Johnstone anf J.A. Johnstone. Who is trying to kill Brannigan and is the bronco buster guilty of murdering the neighbouring rancher? I really liked the dialogue between Ty and his wife and the fact that some of his children actually is growing up and are the reason why he is still alive. I am as said earlier a sucker for a good western and this is one of them. Generally you can count on the Johnstones but some of the books are not so great, I think it has something to do with the rate of production. I thank @kensingtonbooks @netgalley and #Pinnacle that gave me this advance copy and @williamw.j.a.johnstone for writing it. #NetGalley #Kensington #BrannigansLand #TyBrannigan

I thought Johnstone’s Brannigans Land was a fabulous book to read. I highly recommend it and am giving it five plus stars.