Showing results by author "J.A. Johnstone" in All Categories

Smoke Jensen’s daughter Denny can outride, outrope, and outshoot any man who gets in her way. But being a pretty woman, Denny sometimes attracts the attention of unsavory suitors. Like the lecherous Count Malatesta. Denny met the seductive Sicilian on her trip to Europe - and almost fell head over heels for the swindler. What’s he doing in America? 

When Matt and Sam are ambushed by a violent gang led by the scurrilous Zack Jardine, who has his own reasons for wanting the blood brothers dead, Matt is badly wounded. After leaving Matt in a Navajo village to get patched up, Sam rides off hot on the trail of the Jardine Gang. Sam finds the cutthroats selling guns to the Indians, a move that will likely explode into an all-out tribal war. Outnumbered and outgunned, the blood brothers aim to settle Zack Jardine's hash once and for all — with a little luck, a lot of bullets and the courage to shoot true.

A gunshot wound has robbed Audubon, Texas, of its top lawman at the worst possible time. Clete Lanagan and his band of outlaws have hatched a scheme to plunder the town bank of a small fortune in railroad money. When the acting sheriff, Dalton Conyers - half-brother of Smoke’s niece Rebecca - is unable to raise a posse to hunt down Lanagan’s gang, he calls on Smoke for help. But with so much cash at stake, Lanagan won’t go down without a fight. 

Falcon was called to Sorrento by a crusading newspaper reporter trying to expose a conspiracy of greed and corruption — with innocent men dying at the end of a court-ordered rope. As acting US Marshal, Falcon quickly makes some very dangerous enemies. Then he himself is sentenced to hang. But in 24 hours he’ll be out of jail, out on the streets, and shooting lead against a small army of gunmen. Because he knows the three men who have taken over Sorrento. And he sentences them to death — the MacCallister brand....

What happens when you mix 200-proof corn liquor with intoxicating women and two friends on opposite sides of the law? Big trouble. And more is coming: Bearing down on the town of Cottonwood is a murderous bootlegger, hired gunmen, and a gambler with a plan of his own. As a killing storm crashes over Cottonwood, the odds favor the man who is stone cold sober, good with a red hot gun — and backed by unbreakable bonds of blood....

Having saved Sweet Apple, Texas from disaster, Matt and Sam decide to stay and help the new marshal break in his spurs — not to mention squeeze in a well-deserved vacation with the help of the lovely, spirited daughters of two feuding cattlemen. Quicker than you can say dosy do, Matt and Sam find themselves on the verge of a full-scale range war. But even worse trouble heads into town when an old foe shows up with hired killers masquerading as dry goods salesmen.

Apache renegade Bloody Hand plays a role in each of the Jackals' lives. To bounty hunter Jed Breen, he is man with a price on his head. To retired cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan, he is a cellmate after a drunken brawl. And to former Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch, he is the key to a mystery that has long haunted him. When McCulloch breaks Bloody Hand out of jail, his fellow Jackals follow them into Mexico. Now, all four are wanted men. Awaiting them south of the border are Mexican rurales led by Confederate expatriate Major Block Frazer, seeking revenge against Bloody Hand.

Someone is terrorizing the Arizona border. Burning down ranches. Butchering travelers. Blazing a trail of bloodthirsty raids and robbing the railroads blind. His name is Melichus. A ruthless half-breed outlaw with a mile-long record of cruelties and crimes, he’s the most wanted man in the territory. And the massive price on his head has attracted the attention of every trigger-happy, would-be bounty hunter this side of the Rio Grande. But Luke Jensen knows something they don’t: The bigger the bounty, the deadlier the prey.

Luke Jensen has seen some sorry looking bounties in his time, but this one takes the cake. A wanted poster is offering a reward of one dollar and 42 cents — plus one busted harmonica — to capture Three-Fingered Jack McKinney. Turns out, McKinney’s 12-year-old son Aaron wants revenge on his daddy for abandoning him and his mom. The reward is all the money Aaron can scrape together. Luke can’t say no to the poor boy — or his beautiful mother — so he agrees to go after McKinney and his bank-robbing gang. 

Cullen Murphy was forged in the fires of notorious towns, rough cattle drives, and brutal battlefields. And in a land where the strong prey on the weak, he's a law unto himself. Orphaned as a child, Cullen Murphy battled against life's cruelties as he drifted from one unforgiving frontier town...

Here in America, life is full of surprises. Duff never expected to hear from his old friend Charles McGregor, his battalion commander from the Black Watch Regiment of Her Majesty’s army. Turns out McGregor lives in New Mexico now. And he needs Duff’s help. He’s started a new life as the mayor of Antelope Wells - a mining town that’s being targeted by a power-hungry madman Ebenezer Schofield, who wants to declare the whole area an independent principality - and himself as king. 

After a long hard journey up the Chisholm Trail, Kate Kerrigan is in Dodge City, facing a mystery of murder. A cowboy she hired, a man with a notorious past, has been accused of killing a prostitute and sentenced to hang. Kate still trusts Hank Lowry. And when a hired killer comes after her, she knows she has struck a nerve. Someone has framed Hank for murder - in order to cover up a more sinister and deadly crime spawned in the musty backrooms of the Kansas boomtown....

After Conrad Browning, known as The Loner, takes down the men who killed his beloved wife, he hightails it to New Mexico to visit her grave. There, he gets the surprise of his life: His ex-fiancée, Pamela Tarleton, backed up by a vicious gang of gunmen. Turns out the beautiful Miss Tarleton has a long memory — and she’s never forgiven Conrad for breaking their engagement and marrying another. On top of that, she blames Conrad for her father’s death.

The Kerrigans have fought long and hard to carve out their own piece of heaven on the Texas frontier. And when evil comes knocking at their door, with guns blazing, there'll be hell to pay...It begins with a simple act of kindness—and ends in a shocking night of violence. A homeless family shows up on Kate Kerrigan's doorstep, seeking refuge from a vengeful rancher's wrath. Seeing their desperation—and fear—the West Texas matriarch welcomes the family into her home.

Scottish cattleman Duff MacCallister staked a claim for his life in America—and reserves a righteous anger for those who break the law in this smoking six-gun shootout from National Bestselling Authors William W. and J.A. Johnstone.

In all the horrific corners of the Civil War, there was no hell worse than Andersonville, the Confederate prison camp. Less infamous but equally inhumane was a Yankee prison camp run by General Thomas Wainwright. In the war’s aftermath, a survivor of Wainwright’s cruelty summons Joe Buckhorn to New Orleans, and asks the gunslinger to kill the general — not simply for revenge, but to stop another atrocity.

Brewster Ritter had a warning for Flintlock: Do not cross the Sabine River. Ritter, the so-called Baron of the Bayou, is a vicious crime king still seething because Flintlock killed one of his gunmen in a Texas dustup. But Flintlock has his own powerful reasons for crossing into the nightmarish swamp country from East Texas.

If there's anything better than coming home to Texas, it's getting paid to do it. For Scratch Morton and Bo Creel, always on the hunt for funds, the job is taking three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Tyler, Texas for trial. Little do they know that one of the criminals, the one that's a beautiful woman, is the most dangerous of all. Soon the journey home turns into a race for buried treasure, a shoot-out, and another double cross - until Scratch and Bo are making one last mad, bullet-sprayed dash through the land of their birth...or the land of their death....

There’s nothing like a wedding to bring families together. And there’s no place like the Sugarloaf Ranch to throw a foot-stomping hoedown — even if it turns into a gun-blazing showdown. Smoke and Sally Jensen are delighted that their son Louis is marrying the lovely widow he met during a perilous stagecoach journey through the Donner Pass. The whole family welcomes the bride and her young son with open arms. In fact, everyone is invited to the party — even the handsome stranger who rescued Louis’s twin sister Denise from a runaway mustang.

For a posse chasing a murderous band of outlaws, a quiet kid with a lightning fast gun is good company. And when the outlaws turn around and attack the posse, The Loner doesn’t have a choice: he’s now caught up in a running gun battle across West Texas. The Loner knows the men he’s fighting are bad to the bone - led by a merciless killer named Warren Latch. But what about the guys on his side?