William Johnstone's The Man from Blood Gulch (Pinnacle 2025) is another in a long line of excellent classic western by this author. Garret McCoy, aka the Ghost, is a bounty hunter who is one of the best at this job, his success partly due to a deep pain in his soul that doesn’t go away. His family was killed when he was young and many in the small community where he grew up were killed by a madman and his gang looking for gold. Once a happy, uplifting town, it became known as Blood Gulch in honor of the devastation suffered by so many. McCoy learned to shoot, to kill, with the specific goal of bringing justice to those who killed his parents. He used his incomparable skill to help many find justice for their losses. The job paid his upkeep but brought little satisfaction until he came to the town of Coyote Flats where he ran smack into his past. The story is well paced. The characters likable. I would recommend it to all those who enjoy this genre.

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 new series by the Johnstone syndicate has a good character in Garret McCoy. An orphaned boy who becomes a bounty hunter and gets to relive his observation of his family being killed and looks for revenge. In this story, McCoy collects bounties and comes face-to-face with a town with two opposing oligarchs. The saloon in the town is neutral territory.

McCoy whose nickname is "Ghost" has his work cut out for him as he tries to right previous wrongs and keep future wrongs from happening. All is not roses as there are folks he cares about who are wounded and even killed. But in typical Western fashion the basic goodness wins in the end but it is a rocky road filled with bumps.

I enjoyed the fast read and would tell other readers of Westerns they probably will like it too. The characters are not too shallow as sometimes happens in Western stories with the stereotyping.