The Beginning (Smoke Jensen, #1) by William W. Johnstone

The Beginning (Smoke Jensen, #1) Reviews

• 
  Jean

  Johnstone went back to tell the early life of Kirby (Smoke) Jensen and his family. The story begins in 1860-1961 on a ranch in southwestern Missouri. This was a violent time and place in American history.
  
  The book is well written and what I like best about Johnstone’s books is the amount of research done to make an accurate historical novel. The book is full of historical events and facts. I do not feel the books are the same quality as when William Johnstone was writing them, but they are still easy to read and enjoyable.
  
  I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is ten hours and three minutes. Jack Garrett does a good job narrating the story. Garrett is an actor and voice-over actor. He is a well-known audiobook narrator.
  
• 
  Jim A

  Entertaining western from Johnstone. My first novel from him. Billed as a prequel to the Mountain Man series featuring Jensen.
  
  The character, Smoke Jensen, reminded me a lot of the Jess Williams character by Robert J. Thomas. Same moral character. Same expert with a pistol.
• 
  Ed

  Solid Western with a righteous Smoke Jensen seeking justice in a fast paced start of an iconic series.
• 
  Jerry Blackerby

  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.
• 
  Lisa Johnson

  Title: Smoke Jensen: The Beginning (A Smoke Jensen Novel of the West #1)
  Author: William W Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone
  Pages: 368
  Year: 2015
  Publisher: Pinnacle
  My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  Kirby “Smoke” Jensen is one of the best-known characters in Johnstone country. There are to date 48 novels in the Smoke Jensen Last Mountain Man series. Each book can be read as a stand-alone and each is chock full of western action that entertains readers for hours! So far, I haven’t read all the books in this series though I am slowly working my way through them.
  What is nice about this particular novel is that readers can get a better understanding of Kirby and how he came to be known by the handle of “Smoke”. The story places readers at the beginning of the Civil War and talks about the family life of Smoke. It was fascinating to read how he sought justice and the relationships he had with his parents, older brother Luke and a sister named Jane.
  It portrays how serious Smoke took to taking care of the farm, his mother and sister when his brother and father left to join the fight. I enjoyed learning how Smoke met Preacher who taught him how to live off the land and how to survive the ruggedness of life on the frontier. As I read, it was interesting to read the beginnings of Sally Reynolds, who also is a main character in the Smoke Jensen series as well as other novels by Johnstone.
  Whether you’re well-versed in the Smoke Jensen novels or you’re new to Johnstone tales, this book is one not to miss. There is so much to this character and all the various adventures he has, the other characters he meets, and places he travels that readers could be engaged in the West for days! Audiences can visit the authors’ website to view the vast offerings of stories from the pen of Johnstone, purchase your next adventure or download the booklist at
  https://williamjohnstonebooks.com
  Join me for a wild ride!
  Note: The opinions shared in this review are solely my responsibility.
  
• 
  HornFan2

  The good, the bad and the ugly regarding Smoke Jensen: The Beginning, is that it's a rewrite of the Smoke Jensen story 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.
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Benjamin

  I love a good western... This wasn't that. I am disappointed I read as much of this as i did. It wasn't even just bad writing. It also served to add more ignorance and stupidity to the world. To quote Billy Maddison "what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
• 
  Ron

  I read this book some time ago. It is your typical Smoke Jensen Story. Yes we all know they are basically ''recipe'' books and you can predict what is going to happen next. But they are always quick reads and entertaining. But this time, we get his history or as the comic books call it - his secret origin.
  
  We need more western writers out there and should be happy that these books are being written.
• 
  Al Collier

  This is total TRASH! If you are a fan of Smoke, this book destroys the image and even more the innocence Of Kirby and destroys any reason to friend with Preacher. A book written for the lust of money and nothing else.
• 
  Rob Smith, Jr.

  When you have a good thing, why mess with it? For some unfathomable reason the Johnstone Clan decided to "reboot" the Smoke Jensen origin story. They botched it.
  
  The original tale made sense and was far more concise. This one rambles on and on and leaves main and supporting characters scattered here and there and loose ends abound. The editing is atrocious as scenes jump from one place to the other. In some parts of the book a header of a month and year is provided and then hundreds of pages go by before such is seen again.
  
  The writing is also poor. Dialogue reads simplistic and repetitious. This gets to the very unusual weak characters for a Johnstone book. Even Smoke reads flatter than others in the endless series. Smoke's father seems to get younger as written. Earlier in the book the father's dialogue is is very farmer-like. Later his dialogue becomes almost contemporary urban-speak. The actions by the father are, also, one way earlier and then changes. The plotting is even worse. There are too many and far fetched coincidences that occur throughout the book and that equals a very unlikely story.
  
  What bugs me most is the consistency. The Smoke Jensen in this book is written differently than the other books where the character appears. Same with Preacher.
  
  Bottom line: i don't recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.
• 
  Garth Mailman

  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.
• 
  RICHARD STENTON

  It is so much fun to read these wester stories by William Johnstone. They all fit into my sweet spot for relaxing reading and take me back to the beginning of the US and the westward expansion that took place in the 1800's. The characters and their interaction always makes me feel at ease and the triumph of good over evil is just the type of story I love in today's world of turmoil. In this set of stories we begin to learn about the life of Smoke (Kirby) Jensen and his adventures. This is the story of his family, the civil war and the gangs operating in Missouri and Kansas during the war. Smoke is named by a Mountain Man (Preacher) and starts the beginning of his adventures to avenge the killing of his mother and the raping of his sister. This along with his father returning from the Civil War is quite a treat and you will get hooked into reading more and more about Smoke after tasting this tale.
• 
  An EyeYii

  Fast shots, rape, murder, scenic panoramas. Parallel lessons miles apart for brother, beautiful sister in quick draws, painted dove. When the US Civil War hits the Jensen farm, raiders leave Kirby meaning for revenge.
• 
  Chris Perillo

  Really enjoyable book. I was apprehensive at first however it was a well written book, great characters and flowed easily. Look forward to continuing the series.
  
  This book was outside of my normal reading habits
• 
  Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  Excellent entry in the series marred only hy Johnstone's usual top easy and quick ending/final confrontation. Great backstory on the Smoke Jensen clan.
• 
  Lowell Ross

  enjoyed reading as i do all johnstone books.
• 
  Elizabeth

  Loved it!
• 
  Darrell l Brown

  I have been reading about "Smoke" for several years now and I am happy that Mr. Johnstone saw fit to enlighten me as to how his life began. I surely enjoy reading this entire Mountain Man series and look forward to more tales about the Jensen Family.