Outlaw Country by William W. Johnstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Don’t read this book. Instead, gather the original novels, with more actual involvement by William Johnstone. Buy those first Mountain Man books and be prepared to the great enjoyment of reading.
‘Outlaw Country’ (An odd title) gathers a number of those books into one volume. Just rewritten. Those earlier books are well written and exciting. Less the endless droning on of excessive dialogue, watered down action and poorly rewriting of the earlier books. Why on earth this was even attempted is beyond me.

There is an excuse given a number of times throughout the book as to how this book is inconsistent with the original novels: Poor research and memories created earlier tellings of Jensen. That’s too bad, because those original books are worth reading. This one is not.
Also, the reference basically kicks William Johnstone to the curb for these unknown ghost writers to cement the back story of Jensen.

The story is told in a massive flashback that makes no sense as the story is written that Smoke Jensen is remembering the story, yet written in the third person, with much written from outside the ability of Smoke Jensen to know what happened. Especially in that so much over-done dialogue is included.

Again talk, talk, talk is the bulk of the entire book. Instead of focused, concise storytelling, needless talk is throughout that doesn’t move the story along.
Most of the characters are underdeveloped or assumed to be known. I’m still surprised how a Johnstone book could under-write who Louis Longmont is(!!!!). This does appear to be another Johnstone Clan novel with multiple authors writing parts and then still another assembling and attempting to link it all together.

Something that really angered me was the misspelling of Ernest Hemingway’s name. Was that intentional? Why on earth do that? The ghost writer’s got Hemingway’s wife’s name, Hadley, correct. I’d understand if the name was a quick reference. But Hemingway appears throughout as Hemingford, as are references to Hadley, his trip to Paris, his writing plans. Moreover, is the silly fiction of Smoke’s wife tagging Hemingford with the “Papa” moniker. I’m scrapping an entire star off for this.

Now for the problems of the meat and potatoes of the book: For whatever reason this book was constructed, the construction starts off poorly for reasons mentioned above and the tales are oddly truncated. The Preacher & Smoke interaction in the original books shine. This one there is a bunch of banter and little of the teaching and effort to know the ways of a Mountain Men. It’s almost all yapping about this and that. A big who-cares. The heart is lost in this poorly written part.

Then there is a robbery leaving one half-dead that is left hanging.
There is a massive battle that the book heads towards and written in an original novel some 35 years ago. In this, the story’s direction ends in a one sentence line that there was a massive battle with many dead. That battle was significant to so much that happened later, but basically left out here.

Something similar happens in the re-writing of the ending battle of the city of Fontana. This version is winnowed to a simple gun exchange. The original version jarred me when i read it a few years ago. I’d not read before a book where so many that seemed central to a story were wiped out. Daring and original for a writer to take such chances. This version is a safe version.

That does seem to be the actual overall alteration of the original novels: To make the Smoke story safe. If I had started out reading this and not the first Mountain Man novel (Which was entirely by chance), I would not have continued on the past 6 years and now have more than 300 of Johnstone novels.

I know there are good writers in the Johnstone clan. ‘Firestick’ is an example of that. The Preacher series is still well done. But, more and more, the books are losing a sense of plotting and character development. Seems to me the problem there is the incessant starting of new Johnstone Clan series and not concentrating on the original series.

I could write more, but this should cover the bulk of my problems with this book. Since I’m writing this of a yet-to-be-published novel, via Net Galley, I hope the Clan can reapproach this book and work to fix it.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book (the early version i read). 2 out of ten points.

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