When the Shooting Starts (A Smoke Jensen Novel of the West)

Before he became known as "The Last Mountain Man," Smoke Jensen and his bride Sally were hard-working ranchers on the Colorado frontier, when times were hard, tensions were high, and guns were the law…

JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. BULLET BY BULLET.

For Smoke and Sally Jensen, the Sugarloaf Ranch is a glorious stretch of untamed land near the Colorado-Kansas border, the perfect place to stake their claim, raise some cattle, and start a new family. But when a man claiming to be an army colonel arrives in Big Rock-with a well-armed militia-the Jensens' dream becomes a living nightmare. Colonel Lamar Talbot claims there's a war looming with the Cheyenne Indians. And only he can save them from a bloody massacre-by launching a bloody counterattack…

Smoke and Sally aren't sure they trust him. They suspect the colonel and his men are nothing more than brutal vigilantes with a hidden agenda of their own. But the Cheyenne war parties are a very real threat. The tribe's charismatic leader, Black Drum, is launching raids on local ranches, farms, and the railroads, too. Every day, the violence gets worse and the war moves closer-until it reaches the Sugarloaf Ranch. That's when Sally gets attacked. That's when Smoke grabs his guns. That's when the shooting starts-and the final battle begins…

Readers Top Reviews

Abibliofob

When the Shooting Starts by William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone is not the best book in this series mostly because they don't have all the facts strait about when Smoke started his ranch in Colorado but after so many books I can imagine that it's hard keeping track of all the facts. I still enjoyed the book because it had some new and interesting plot twists that I haven't seen befor, such as a company of soldiers who came to protect the citizens but are they really soldiers? The book deals with a lot of different problems and as usual we get a lot of fist fighting and shootouts as there should be in a good western. I still wonder why Smoke suddenly stopped wearing his trademark two gun rig that he had in all the early books. I must thank @kensingtonbooks @netgalley and #Pinnacle that gave me this advance copy and @williamw.j.a.johnstone for writing it. #NetGalley #Kensington #WhenTheShootingStarts

Jacqui Murray

Smoke Jensen is one of the many long-standing series in the Jensen Family Universe that includes Smoke, his children, his relatives, and Smoke's adopted father, Preacher. Smoke has a long and storied career starting as mountain man raised by Preacher, moving on to soldier, renegade, somewhat-outlaw, ending as an law abiding ranch owner who is a pillar of Big Rock, the town he started. When the Shoot Starts, Book 4 of the Smoke Jensen Westerns, takes place soon after Smoke established his ranch Sugarloaf and married Sally, but before his children. An Indian war chief Black Drum escapes from the reservation and swears to destroy the white man who has destroyed his legacy. The more successful he is at this gruesome task, the more Indians join his group until it numbers close to one hundred. At that point, Black Drum decides that Sugarloaf and Big Rock are good places to make his stand. Smoke Jensen disagrees. The story is complicated when outlaws who masquerade as the Army to defend Big Rock from the Indians make it hard to tell the good guys from the bad. Another excellent Smoke Jensen book. If you love this Universe, you won't want to miss it.

Wanda S. Porter

Another fine story about Smoke Jensen. A hostile group of killing Indians that need to be stopped.Hard to put this book down

Bamartr

Another great story from the very beginning. Cowboys, Indians and townsfolk. Fighting for Big Rock against "Owlhoots". Wonderfully written and told.