In William Johnstone's Whip Hand (Pinnacle 2024), Book 4 of Hunter Buchanon Black Hills Western, readers meet one family of ranchers, two groups of cold-hearted murderers, with so many ways to die. As the tagline suggests, this is really two stories in one book. Hunter Buchanan and his wife, Anna, take ten premium horses they have raised and trained to sell to a new horse ranch a distance from his ranch. After the sale, the couple is ambushed, Hunter left for dead, and Anna kidnapped by a Mexican bandit. Buchanan manages to survive and takes off to rescue his wife and maybe retrieve his money, funds critical to his ranch's survival. While he wrestles with this set of problems, his father remains back at the ranch to keep the business going and look  after an adopted son. Father is old, one-armed, and doesn't see well, so when Pinkerton agents hire him to find two bad guys who have holed up in the mountains, he says yes, wanting a taste of the youth he left behind, knowing he probably won't have this sort of chance ever again. He takes his grandson with him, using the opportunity to teach him about surviving in the wild. Being as old and experienced as he is, it comes as no surprise to him that nothing he has been told about the job is true.

A good story that kept me engaged the entire time. It lost a point because there were a lot of mixed themes to these two plots and at times, the logical leaps weren't quite believable. Still, I will keep reading this classic Western author.

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.

Reading "The Whip Hand," the idea of a bullwhip came to mind. Well not so -- in this book, it refers to a fast draw! It is Hunter Buchanan, a former Confederate soldier in the recent Civil Way, who is the Whip Hand. Along with his father, Angus, and an orphaned boy Nate, Hunter and his hard won wife Anna are trying to make a go of it on a Box-Bar-B Ranch. Hard work has been needed to get to this point but this effort is paying off in the sale of 10 of their most beautiful horses for $200 each..

Thrown in with the $2,000, a number of outlaws and various other criminals who want either money, horses, a woman, or all of the above and you have a story to read about. At first, the novel starts pretty slowly and is sort of boring and very cliched with character development. The storyline is so predictable adding to the boredom. However, as a Hunter's wife is kidnapped, his beating, and other shootings happen, the story seems to get better; perhaps the reader just gets used to the cliched action. Most Westerns have the good guys win in the end and this is not really different but the intervening action seems stilted at times. Don't forget the marauding grizzly, money from a train robbery, Pinkerton agents on the case, and a one-armed man along with an orphan, leading a second story plot up mountain terrain.

It is not an awful book but does not live up to the kind of action I am used to seeing from the Johnstone authors. Perhaps different ghost writers? Not sure about that. I did not hate the story at the end but in the beginning almost said no to continuing. Not the best of the Johnstone family output, in my opinion.

The Whip Hand is the fourth book in the Hunter Buchanan series by William Johnstone and Jay Johnstone when the book starts Hunter in Annabelle who are now married we’re going to sell 10 gently trained horses to a Mr. Scanlon and when they arrive Hunter is a bit hesitant because of the state of the man’s desert ranch. He decides to proceed with caution but when his fancy English educated daughter comes out he and Annabel feel a bit better about it and in the morning they set out to the head back to the B Bar ranch. It is when they are on the way home and stop to stay at the yellow hotel that he runs in to a man he knows to be cautious of and ugly outlaw named Machado he was in town with his gang and later that night while Hunter and Annabelle were going to their hotel room that they jumped him stole his money and took Annabelle and the man was known to sell women into prostitution so Hunter was not only angry when he woke up with broken ribs but anxious to find her and get her back. Wild this was happening Nate and grandpa Buchanan we’re at home on the B Bre ranch with a group of men claiming to be Pinkertons wanted to hire him to take them up into the mountains looking for train robbers. He told them to come back the next day and let him have a think on it and dreaming of his days of old he decided he and Nate would do it. It was while going up into the mountains that he started thinking these fellas ain’t Pinkertons at all but what they were he knew was up to no good every now and then I read a book by the Johnstones that makes me think the John stones either didn’t write it or maybe it’s Jay on his own since William passed away but having said that almost every woman has red hair and green eyes and it seems the ending always comes a bit too abrupt not to mention there’s always a humongous bear in the mix now having said that this book was really good a definite Johnstone novel but again the ending was a bit too abrupt for my taste but it is still a book worth reading I really like Hunter Buchanan he is one of the few Johnstone heroes that takes a hit in rise is broken and battered to still turn out the hero. I have never met a John Stone novel I haven’t loved but the ones like this one on as good as a lot of the other ones I know this makes no sense… Lol! Either way it’s still a great book and the one I totally recommend. I want to thank Kensington publishing for my free art copy via NetGalley. Please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review..

First, the title fits the book. The cover is different for a Johnstone book and I like it. Thing is, someone didn't know what the book was about. The 'Whip hand' is about the main character's ability to pull gun, not handling a whip.

This book, via access through NetGalley.com, is really 3 books in one. This direction does solve contractual obligations to reach a page count and works better than the more and more fluffed out books coming out of the Johnstone Clan. I really think a better direction is to have the books be a collection of stories. Basically as is being done collecting the Smoke Jensen and Preacher earlier books. I propose taking this Buchanon book and make it 3 separate stories. I believe these would also sell better. Shorter for today's readers and the "3 books in one!" tag.

The three tales are solid and well woven together. The three breakout from the beginning. One at the start and the another breaks out a bit further in. All 3 reconnect in the end with a lot that unfolds in 3 entirely different ways. This works well do to the typical strong Johnstone characters.

Bottom line I recommend this book. 8 out of ten points.