Customer Reviews

Law of the Mountain Man

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This particular series of books featuring Smoke Jensen have fiercly dedicated fans. I"m only a casual reader but I buy these books as gifts for a family friend who is serving a prison sentence. I am rating these based on his reviews. He tells me these are the perfect escape books for people who are either incarcerated or perhaps disabled or elderly. The action is fast-paced and the descriptions of the Western frontier are authentically detailed. He appreciates that WWJ often refers to historic events of interest and will try and tie the story in with those happenings. Reading this series and the Preacher Series by the same author has motivated him to ask for non-fiction books about the Frontier and the Old West.

Having begun reading these books myself I can attest that they are well-wrriten and intelligent but they do not ask the reader to have a master's degree in history. True events are worked into the structure of the stories or mentioned by the characters as part of the action itself. In addition, Johnstone manages to work in real western or cowboy poet poems or quotes such as famed Yukon Poet, Robert W. Service! The stories really take you away, transporting you to that time amd way of life while remaining fast-paced and action-oriented. His politics are a bit conservative/Libertarian but not in a bad way. It's more that Johnstone's protagonists advocate being able to take care of themselves and others, which is fitting with the time periods in which he sets his fiction. He does have a futuristic, post-apocalypse series written , but I have not read that yet. I undertsand politics play a bigger part in those books. So, as you can see, these are good and fun, fast reads but not "dumbed-down" books by any stretch of the imagination. They merely attempt to make the reader feel a part of the story as opposed to an observer. I like that.

There are currently 34 books in this particular series and the first 28 or so were written totally by WWJ. The later books were collaborations with his niece Jo Johnstone. WWJ himself passed away a few years ago in 2004 or 2006 depending on your source, and Jo has taken over most of the continuing series. However, readers didn't even realize the man had died until his publisher 'fessed up so I would assume that the current writer is keeping with the same tried and true formula that fans expect when they buy one of these books. WHen I began sending the later books to my Family Friend; he never noticed any major changes in the quality of the story-telling so Jo Johnstone, niece and Assistant to the original writer must be working from an outline W.W.J. left behind. That would be my guess. In case it matters to others and some have messaged me, I started sending the books as part of a Christian Program. I've learned a lot about what books are popular "inside" as a result. I got the idea of sending these to elderly friends as a result and they loved them just as much! These are fun, entertaining books that manage yo learn 'ya a little somethin' along the way.

Update Jan 2012: Wikipedia has a list of the order of each series if you just search on the authors name and then you can print that out and figure out where you want to begin. My family friend has almost finished the Smoke Jensen series but still has a lot of the Preacher series to go. Many of these books are available in double books or in the 4 for 3 program. Just find out how may books you can send in one week. If you're reading them for your own pleasure or sending them to somebody in a nursing home, then this is unlikely to be an issue for you. As for the List I found on Wikipedia - I typed up the list in WORD on a double sided page printout and mailed my friend 2 copies; 1 for his reference and one for mine. I had him send me one copy back marked up with where he was in each series and which ones interested him the most and he did that. It's a good system. When I buy one, I draw a line through it. When he tells me he got it, I check it off in red. He does the same and that way we're one the same page. These William W. Johnstone Series set in the Western Frontier both the Smoke Jensen MountainMen series, the newer Matt Jensen series and the Preacher Man Series are highly desirable as "trade items" on the inside and/or will be greatly welcomed if your loved one donates them to the facilities library. I have found out over the years that having good books to "trade, share or donate is a very useful thing to a man or woman behind bars.

FYI: For those sending to incarcerated readers, here's something interesting I learned, If you write P.O. BOX NO PO BOX on the first line of the address, Amazon's computer will ship them via the USA Postal Service so for example, I write Names: John Doe # 123456789XYZ, PO BOX NO PO BOX - Whatever C.I., Street Address , City, Zip code, My phone number. That way it doesn't violate most State Prison rules. Using that P.O. BOX NO PO BOX trick bypasses UPS or Fedex if you have PRIME and ships the books out Via Postal Service 2nd Day service. Check the used books too because some of the cheaper used ones are Prime Eligible and if you're paying for Prime, why not take advantage of the free shipping?

If you know somebody who could use a little escape to this time period, you really can't go wrong with these books. The only thing I would say is to be aware of his politics which do tend to be a little bit on the conservative side of things. This doesn't figure as much in the westerns but in his Post-apocalypse series mentioned above and called ASHES, it's front and center. Many fans of Westerns have never gotten around to that series but I'm just puttin' it out there for you so you know. You never know, you might just like those books too!

Smoke Jensen finds himself in the middle of a tough-mean low down range war and not knowing why. Now he must choose sides or risk being killed, the one thing Smoke does not want to do. Smoke never in his life liked bullies nor anyone trying to push him. So when Jud Vale and his hired idiots tried to push, Smoke gave back in kind.