JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. WHERE LIVING IS ANYTHING BUT GUARANTEED.
William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone are back as Smoke Jensen's biggest fan discovers the real-world dangers of hero worship in the Wild West . . .
New Yorker Randolph Bartlett has come to Big Rock, Colorado, to meet the real Smoke Jensen, the legendary gunslinger mythologized in the dime novels Randolph has thrilled to since he was a kid. Impressed by his gumption, Smoke invites Randolph to the Sugarloaf for an education in hard-working life in the true West. But the lessons turn downright dangerous when Randolph disappears, last seen barely alive and tossed into a boxcar like any other tramp heading for California. Trouble found that greenhorn in Big Rock and Smoke is dead-set on finding out why by taking to the boxcars himself.
In disguise and infiltrating the dicey hobo jungles is bad enough. Catching up to Randolph in San Francisco's lawless Barbary Coast is worse. Both men are catching fire every which way-from the ruffians who rule the rails to a gang of tong hatchet men to a flesh-and-blood enemy of Randolph's on a deadly personal pursuit.
Randolph never asked to be an outlaw, let alone live a gun-blazing, action-packed adventure of his own. The hail of bullets, assassins, and treachery to come could make for a hell of a Smoke Jensen dime novel of his own. Should he live to write it . . .
