Fetch Your Copy Kill Or Die (Flintlock, #3) Authored By William W. Johnstone Conveyed In Pamphlet

Greatest Western Writer Of Thest Century

One man, One rifle. One way to take on the most vicious outlaws on the frontier, . . In the acclaimed new series by William and J, A. Johnstone, the bounty hunter known as Flintlock brings his trusty muzzleloader and a motherlode of courage into the most bitter and vicious battle he's ever had to fight.


Blood In The Bayou

Brewster Ritter had a warning for Flintlock: Do not cross the Sabine River, Ritter, the socalled Baron of the Bayou, is a vicious crime king still seething because Flintlock killed one of his gunmen in a Texas dustup.
But Flintlock has his own powerful reasons for crossing into the nightmarish swamp country from East Texas, Now in an eerie land of mysterious mists, haunting cypress trees, snakes, gators, and blackhearted, triggerhappy war hogs, Ritter is waiting for Flintlock with enough men and guns to kill him ten times over.
Flintlock knows what he's getting into, though, and losing is not an option, Because what's at stake is not just lives, or Ritter's criminal kingdom, but the future of a the very soul and survival of this land.
Bedlam O I liked the book enough, but here are some personal pros and cons I thought I'd mention for anyone else looking to read this book.
I will leave out spoilers, of course,

Firstly, the start of the book was very sudden, a bit crass, It throws you in the deep end, hands bound, with little dialogue and little description of who is doing what and why, You're familiar with Flintlock, but suddenly there's stuff going down and he's just always caught unaware like a greenhorn, It makes his character seem a bit inept, which happens a few times in the story and does not seem to coincide with his already developed character.


For awhile, it almost seemed as if there wereorghostwriters, given the writing style changed noticeably, That settles down near the middle of the book and the writing style becomes balanced,

Next we have the steampunk love, and by God does this ghostwriter love them some steampunk, Everyone is in steampunk fashion, we have steamboats, steam dirigibles and steam cars, Everyone, even Ol' Barnabas, is wearing steam googles, Also gears, pocket watches, buckles, top hats etc abound, Not to say it is a bad thing, just sorta odd in a Western book, It may throw some readers so I thought to mention it,

The story holds well, and unlike a lot of books lately we get an afterward, a bit more story and set up, I was delighted with that bit, gets you looking

forward to the next tale,

So to reiterate:

Pros: good, solid story original and not overdone good action, good humor we get an ending plus more Ol' Barnabas, I just love the whole deal with him, so he is always a pro.


Cons: the beginning, rushed, sloppy some dialogue in the cantina was just, . Foolish the switched writing styles getting a button by buckle by goggle description of everyone's steampunk outfits every single time they changed clothes which is a lot.


All in all, I eventually enjoyed the book, I have no intention of diminishing the authors or discouraging anyone to read the book, I merely aimed to mention things I personally noticed to give voice in case anyone is on the fence about reading the book, and wanted an honest, in depth review.
Flintlock returns in this, the third installment in yet another series by William Johnstone aka JA Johnstone and an army of ghostwriters, I read Flintlock about three years ago, and when I did, it was my first introduction to the western, and, quite frankly, I was blown away.
I LOVE Flintlock, and despite reading over twenty western novels since then from a variety of western writersRalph Cotton, Louis La'mour, Portis, and one or two othersI still consider Flintlock the best of all of them.
I don't know for sure who wrote FlintlockWilliam or JAbut whomever it was, he wrote what I consider a novel along the lines of True Grit in literary quality.


That said, the followup to Flintlock was "Gut Shot," and despite looking forward to that novel, I was quite disappointed you can read my review of that elsewhere on goodreads.
In the third book in the saga, it's very obvious that the person who wrote Flintlock, also wrote Kill or Die, I can state with unequivocal confidence that the same writer did NOT write the second book, which was inferior not just in literary quality, but in all the elements of literature that make a novel great.
Here, Flintlock is back to normalconfident in who he is, what he stands for, and what lengths he will go to to ensure that the wicked suffer and the righteous are rewarded.
In "Gut Shot," Flintlock became a wishywashy peacenik who constantly hesitated to kill, when doing so would have saved countless lives later, I love to see Flintlock display his innate character, He isn't the fastest gunman alive, like Fast Larry Shaw in Ralph Cotton's Gunman's Song series, He isn't handsome. In fact, he himself acknowledges his physical limitations, He isn't the archetypal hero who can do no wrong, with the bad guys and the ladies, No, in many ways, Flintlock is like you and me, He struggles through life trying to survive day to day, When confronted with evil and injustice, he fights back, through his intellect, and when necessary, his skill as a gunman, He may not be fast, but he's accurate, He makes mistakes along the way, He can be guilty of succumbing to the wiles of a good looking woman who usually causes him to lower his guard and make a fatal mistake.
In short, he's human, yet his humanity is what makes him so appealing as a character, and why I so enjoy him, He has a wry sense of humor that repeatedly has me laughing, and I particularly enjoy his friendship with his "injun" friend, O'Hara, They bungle through life and find themselves in one disaster after another, yet in the end, they always emerge victorious, but not unscathed, I do agree with the previous reviewer that it's somewhat frustrating to watch Flintlock make a number of stupid mistakes that can lead to his demise.
As an experienced gunman, he should know better than to get himself into some of these situations, but he never loses his cool, and with the help of faithful friends, he survives and endures for yet another day, and, hopefully, another adventure.
Here, Barnabahis dead grandfather who visits him regularly to smack some sense into himindicates that now, his ma is in Arizona, and I presume that is where Flintlock's next adventure will take him.
I am anxiously counting down the days until that adventure is released, Numberin the series of 'Flintlock' and either the writer changed or somebody got in a big hurry to hit a deadline, One things for sure The writer does not know swamps!

The over all story is good, but far simpler in telling than the previous two.
Not helping is my reading great authors since reading the two, Folks like Walter Lippmann, Mark Greaney and John D, MacDonald.

I am so glad I read John D, 's 'Condominium' before reading this book, Odds of someone doing that is extremely low, The odd thing is that 'Kill or Die' is basically 'Condominium', Just that all of the characters have guns, There is the community living in the swamp, a ruthless developer out to wipe out the cypress swamp and the oncoming hurricane, The story was eerily similar,

The writing of the cypress swamp really bugged me, Obviously the writer has never stepped foot in one, I don't know much about west of the Mississippi and all of the rocks and dirt in the west, Not my thing. But, here in Florida, I know swamps and like them a lot,

It's supposedly late Summer in a Southern swamp, All of the characters acted comfortable, Even the most die hard Southerner sweats like crazy in late August, But most especially someone like Flintlock, used to the dry western air, would be having a hell of a time adjusting to the thick humidity.


Also, where are the bugs Now, most healthy swamps actually have few bugs, But this is described as home to many people, Thus, the swamp should be filled with all kinds of bugs, Few appear throughout the swamp scenes,

The BIGGEST omission, and a huge strike in my book, are the cypress knees, No one is just going to go trotting out into a swamp they don't know and not, either, navigate around the knees or trip over them.
NOT ONCE are knees mentioned, That's impossible, for a cypress can not survive without the attached knees jutting out for air,

This is the least clever of the three Flintlocks, Rather a standard story with some excellent enhancing elements like the balloon, the odd mideastern valet and the description of Evangeline, The odd mysticism continues in this book, but not with the magical flair of the first two, The characters are very well done and typical of a Johnstone Clan book, The settings are lacking this time around, especially with the noted above, The ending appears to be multiple chapters tacked on, I guess, to increase page count, This is the shortest of the Flintlock series bypages,

Proof to me that this is surely a different writer is that Flintlock is not described as in the other two books, The tattoo is only described on his neck and not running from the side of his face to his chest, Also, Flintlock is not described by his shorter stature or mustache, Also, O'Hara's character has greatly altered to being more of a side kick than the drifter described in the first two,

This third book continues the trend of having a horrible cover, Still not Flintlock on the cover, Also, the background in know way looks like a Louisiana swamp,

Can't believe I've caught up with a Johnstone Clan title! First series I've read all that are available,

Bottom line: i recommend this book,out of ten points. William Wallace Johnstone was a prolific American author, mostly of western, horror and survivalist novels, Born and raised in southern Missouri, Johnstone was the youngest of four children, His father was a minister and his mother a school teacher, He quit school when he was fifteen and worked in a carnival and as a deputy sheriff, He later served in the Army and, upon returning to civilian life, worked in radio broadcasting foryears, Johnstone started his writing career in, but did not have any works published untilsitelink The Devils Kiss and became a full time writer in.
He wrote close to two hundred books in numerous genres, including suspense and horror, His main publication series were Mountain Man, The First Mountain Man William Wallace Johnstone was a prolific American author, mostly of western, horror and survivalist novels.
Born and raised in southern Missouri, Johnstone was the youngest of four children, His father was a minister and his mother a school teacher, He quit school when he was fifteen and worked in a carnival and as a deputy sheriff, He later served in the Army and, upon returning to civilian life, worked in radio broadcasting foryears, Johnstone started his writing career in, but did not have any works published untilsitelink The Devil's Kiss and became a full time writer in.
He wrote close to two hundred books in numerous genres, including suspense and horror, His main publication series were Mountain Man, The First Mountain Man, Ashes and Eagles and his own personal favorite novel was sitelink The Last of the Dog Team.
He also authored two novels under the pseudonym sitelink William Mason, Johnstone had lived for many years in Shreveport, Louisiana, yet died in Knoxville, TN, at the age of, sitelink J. A. Johnstone is continuing William W, Johnstone's series. sitelink.