The Beginning (A Smoke Jensen Novel), Smoke Jensen

I would suggest that anyone to read what we johnstone works .it was a loss to all who enjoy western and action books at his passing. J.a. johnstone his grandson has picked up the torch. His works are also of simular style and quality.

Kirby (Smoke) Jensen was Matt Jensen's mentor and friend. In this volume we have Kirby's coming of age years on a small 40-acre family farm in Missouri during the American Civil War. Every legend has had its beginnings somewhere and this is Smokes'. Farmers in this neighbourhood had divided loyalties. They didn't hold with slave-owning and they disliked Federal Government interference. Those who didn't sign up with the armies of the North or South drifted toward guerilla raiders; the Confederates in Missouri were Bushwhackers, the Union sympathizers in Kansas were Jayhawkers. Famously the James Brothers rode with Quantril's Raiders and thus got their start switching to banks and railroads after the war. The author has Jesse James hand Smoke his first handgun carved with the initials JJ.

Only his father returns from the war slowly dying from wounds received. Smoke is taught the art of the quick draw. Leaving the farm they meet up with Preacher, a mountain man who teaches Smoke his trade which he later teaches his protégé Matt. Knowing that the Mountain Man series stretches to 45 volumes takes some of the suspense out of their exploits. The men seem to have more lives than a cat.

The writer of this book is William W. Johnstone's niece, J.A. Johnstone. This is her attempt at writing her own story using her uncle's characters and set storyline. William Johnstone died in 2004, yet the publisher plasters his name across the cover of every book his niece submits for publishing because they know his name sells and his writing was good. Whereas William W. Johnson's tone of voice and smooth conversation between characters is obvious in his own series, J.A. Johnstone's attempt to create her own story with her uncle's name tells more than shows and seems to state events in a placid, uninterested tone of voice.

J.A Johnstone is claimed to be William W. Johnstone's original fact-checker in the brief biography at the end of the book, however, most of the "facts" in this book are clichés from old Hollywood western films. The book combines two storylines, one of Smoke Jensen and the other of his sister, Janey. In the original series, Janey was never a central figure to the overall story and the author seems to have made her into a pet project in this book while adding dry recounts of Smoke Jensen's history from William W. Johnstone's published works--even going as far as quoting passages of text from the first book in William’s series, The Last Mountain Man.

The only parts of the book that seem to convey enthusiasm from J.A. is Janey’s storyline which focuses on her sexual encounters as a chronic prostitute. In the original series by William W. Johnstone, Janey ran away with a gambler and we do not hear about her life. J.A.’s scenes focusing on Janey are strangely detailed compared to Smoke’s storyline of “he rode here. He shot (insert name here) and won. He rode on to the next town.”

JANEY'S STORY:
Janey is a prostitute who seems to only care for herself and is apparently the most beautiful woman in the world, capable of luring every man in the western frontier who can afford it into her bed for $100-$500 a night. This is a ridiculous sum of money for back then, and was more common for the Madams running their parlor houses than the prostitutes who worked for them. While the author does not go into explicit sex, she does make the reading long by forcing the reader to learn how Janey changes her name and identity in every town she comes to in order to rise to the top of the ranks in every parlor house and saloon she is employed at. Some of her exploits include:

- Being raped by 30 men in one sitting, but she seems unaffected and unruffled a few hours later. Being raped once would indicate some psychological trauma, but Janey does not appear to have any.
- Running away from home to join a parlor house as a prostitute after being raped, although she had thoughts of becoming a "soiled dove" long before the rape ever happened.
- Running away from one town to the next and changing her identity multiple times because she thinks Smoke and their father will try to take her back home after she stole all of the family's money to make a life for herself the day she was raped. This plotline never goes anywhere because Smoke and his father do not ever make any attempt to find her and only refer to her as "white trash" at the end of the book.
-Running away from her fiancée who is a rich man, giving her everything she wants in life. She runs away after she has his baby because "she doesn't want their daughter to know she was a prostitute," leaving him to raise it alone. She then goes back into prostitution.

SMOKE'S STORY:
Smoke Jensen, also known as Kirby, is given some extra scenes not originally in the series by William W. Johnstone. Smoke Jensen’s scenes in this book are either cut-and-paste Hollywood material or just plum ridiculous, including:

-Shooting at pecans for several pages to prove his skill as a gunman.
-Shooting holes through a painting of a woman's genitals and breasts to prove his skill as a gunman.
-"Kirby/Smoke shot (insert name here) and he did it lightning quick and with perfect aim" in every fight scene to prove his skill as a gunman.
-Using a train to pull down a stone jailhouse wall with chains tied to the bars. When the Mythbusters actually tried to pull the bars from a jailhouse wall with 4,000 lbs of force using a chain and a construction vehicle, the bars didn’t budge on a wooden jail wall standing by itself. I doubt the 1800’s train in this book could actually rip off the wall of a stone jailhouse just by hooking it to the bars and the back of the last car without the chains breaking. Wouldn’t that wall start to drag on the train tracks after a while if it actually did work? And why, if the wall came tumbling down would the jailer just shout from the first room, “What’s going on back there?” and not go check it himself right away? Why would Smoke have enough time to crawl out of the rubble, get on his horse, get his gun from his father and then ride off before the jailer could see what happened, pull out his gun and shoot them through the hole in the wall?
-A courthouse session where the entire town present were unrealistically favorable towards defending two complete strangers as gunfighters "of the Ol' West."

Other Things Wrong With This Book:

- Every man who Smoke/Kirby faced was described as "evil" or "he wore an evil smile."
- Complete strangers praised Smoke for his skills as a gunmen and gave him free drinks and meals almost wherever he went just because they were impressed with his guns and his values.
- All women in the book are either prostitutes or completely naive and soon to become soiled by other prostitutes (except for Smoke's mother; she dies from a gunshot wound instead of sickness as in the original book by William W. Johnstone.)
- Janey never has to face any consequences for the choices she makes. No matter what she does (steal, lie, cheat, etc) she always gets the richest men, the best clothing, and everything she could ever want. If she makes too many mistakes, she just starts over by running away from her problems to the next town. She's a stagnant character. The book carries an undertone of "if you judge Janey, you're a horrible person," due to the support she receives from other characters who defend or justify her actions.
- Janey works as a prostitute in a saloon; this is not historically accurate. Dance hall girls inhabited saloons, and they did not dabble in prostitution; it only happened very rarely and in the shabbiest, most run-down saloons. It was the parlor houses where prostitutes worked in the 1800's.
- Several key scenes are skipped and long years of time pass between chapters.
- The dialogue is short and dry.

I'm surprised no one has figured it out sooner that THIS ISN'T THE SAME AUTHOR as the original series. J.A. should write her own stories and not use her uncle’s fame as a way of earning her living as an author. If you want to read the original series, read only the books published before 2004, and avoid those stating “Written by William W. Johnstone with J.A. Johnstone.” It is a shame that the author's family and the publishing company chose to take a man’s written legacy and hand it over to a more inexperienced writer for the sake of instant exposure in the publishing industry and financial gain.

The good, the bad and the ugly regarding Smoke Jensen: The Beginning, is that it's a rewrite of the Smoke Jensen story, it's asinine at times and it's not true to the way William W. Johnstone's told Smoke's story.

The good is that we learn more about Smoke's younger years, pre civil war with his father Emmett, his mom pearl, his brother Luke and sister Janey.

Now the bad, anything published by J.A. Johnstone written by an anonymous ghost writer who gets no credit, gets sold using Willam's name, with her new series, it's hit or miss, bad editing and nothing of the quality that William wrote.

The ugly is that for myself and so many readers of William W. Johnstone Westerns. If you twisted our arm, ask us who was your favorite character, it would be 'Smoke Jensen', but I loved them all equally and fondly looked forward to his releases.

So it's pretty asinine for his niece J.A. Johnstone to basically rewrite Smoke Jensen's life. Oh she follows William's storyline, but adds events to it, that make no sense, are unrealistic or believable and even contradicts Williams own telling of Smoke. Plus the addition of Janey's life, seems to be filler just to add pages to the book and especially since William never wrote anything about her other than she ran off with a gambler.

Smoke Jensen's the last series were I have books left to read that William wrote, so I've been savoring reading them and holding off reading them slowly.

The biggest blunder with this book is that, she could have just expanded on William's storyline in the book, broke it into a volume of short stories, expanded areas that William didn't originally and would have been interesting reading to add to them. Or just started a totally new series mountain man series.

J.A. and Kensington would have kept this old diehard fan happy verse having me dedicate myself to keep reading their releases and just giving my unbiased, unfiltered honest review.

So a huge thank you to Walmart, Sam's Club for making these releases so cheap, for me to be able to afford to do this and A Novel Idea for the ones I purchase used due to them having bad reviews.

William Johnstone is an amazing author. He has created a great wild west story line with Smoke Jensen. The story takes place in the old west after Smoke Jensen leaves Missouri and heads west with his father to find the men who killed his brother. A great amount of detail and story telling skills goes into this book. I enjoy a good western and Johnstone is a great writer and does an incredible job of western story telling. This young man Smoke Jensen is destined for a legacy even he does not yet understand. Great book to read and a great series to continue to read.

I was prepared to dislike this story, although even Louis L'Amour used the technique to write about the beginning of the Sackett series. I was extremely pleased to find this story was well written, easy reading, and some good characters. I finally gave it five stars, although I was sorely tempted to drop one star for the minor disappointments.
I was disappointed when I read the story summary on the back of he paperback that claimed: "...the crowning achievement of America's most popular "living" Western writer."
Even more disappointing was the fact it is a continued story instead of concluding the task Smoke Jensen set himself.
And, as with all the Pinnacle Johnstone Westerns, they would have us believe they are factual and not fiction; no statement they are fiction on the title page. The note about the cover photo is pathetic!
In spite of all that, this is probably the best of the Johnstone books that have been written by "selected" authors since Bill Johnstone's death in 2004. Not one sentence about reluctance to kill the bad guys or restraint for fear innocent bystanders may be injured. Just the good guy trying to right wrongs with a fast gun! And doing it well!
Norm

I have been reading the Last Mountain Man books for a while. Bits and pieces of Smoke Jensen's back story are revealed in the stories, but Smoke Jensen, the Beginning tied the stories together very nicely and revealed all the details I have been wondering about all along.

Another excellent book about Smoke Jensen. This one begins when Kirby Jensen is a young pre-teen about the beginning of the Civil War and brings him up to adulthood and his name of Smoke Jensen. W.W Johnstone developed a great character and trained his nephew, J.A. in the historical research to make the stories accurate and write in the style that makes them interesting books. J.A. Johnstone is doing a great job of keeping the stories going. I love all of them.