The Whip Hand -- 3 stars

Reading "The Whip Hand," the idea of a bullwhip came to mind.  Well not so -- in this book, it refers to a fast draw!  It is Hunter Buchanan, a former Confederate soldier in the recent Civil Way, who is the Whip Hand.  Along with his father, Angus, and an orphaned boy Nate, Hunter and his hard won wife Anna are trying to make a go of it on a Box-Bar-B Ranch.  Hard work has been needed to get to this point but this effort is paying off in the sale of 10 of their most beautiful horses for $200 each..

Thrown in with the $2,000, a number of outlaws and various other criminals who want either money, horses, a woman, or all of the above and you have a story to read about.  At first, the novel starts pretty slowly and is sort of boring and very cliched with character development.  The storyline is so predictable adding to the boredom.  However, as a Hunter's wife is kidnapped, his beating, and other shootings happen, the story seems to get better; perhaps the reader just gets used to the cliched action.  Most Westerns have the good guys win in the end and this is not really different but the intervening action seems stilted at times. Don't forget the marauding grizzly, money from a train robbery, Pinkerton agents on the case, and a one-armed man along with an orphan, leading a second story plot up mountain terrain.

It is not an awful book but does not live up to the kind of action I am used to seeing from the Johnstone authors.  Perhaps different ghost writers?  Not sure about that.  I did not hate the story at the end but in the beginning almost said no to continuing. Not the best of the Johnstone family output, in my opinion.