Painting the Town Red

Dead Broke, Colorado #2

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Welcome back to Dead Broke, Colorado. Where the latest discovery—a giant boulder of zinc—ignites a kill-crazy war that rocks the Rockies to their core . . .

Ever since the silver market crashed, the mining town of Dead Broke has been awfully quiet. The local marshal—legendary gunman Duncan “Mick” MacMicking—doesn’t have much to do besides outshoot the occasional greenhorn looking to challenge him. But all this peace and quiet is about to end. Mayor Nugget has unearthed a mineral to rival his famous “Hope Diamond of Silver.” He calls it the “Zinc of Zion,” a 1,776-pound boulder of pure zinc carbonate. And when he announces his discovery at the World’s Fair in Chicago, the quiet little boomtown of Dead Broke goes boom—again—with a vengeance . . .

First, a mining expert from Germany shows up—with his eyes on the prize. Then, a reporter from Baltimore arrives—and ends up dead in one of the mines. It doesn’t take long for the town marshal and mayor to realize they’ve got a full-blown zinc war on their hands. Fueled by greed—and backed by gunpower—the German’s business proposition turns into a very hostile takeover. And then the German himself turns out to be a notorious outlaw with a long history of stealing whatever—and killing whoever—he wants. There’s just one thing stopping him from painting the whole town a gunfighting legend who happens to be the town marshal they call Mick . . .

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

William W. Johnstone is the #1 bestselling Western writer in America and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of hundreds of books, with over 50 million copies sold. Born in southern Missouri, he was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. He left school at fifteen to work in a carnival and then as a deputy sheriff before serving in the army. He went on to become known as "the Greatest Western writer of the 21st Century." Visit him online at WilliamJohnstone.net.

Reviews

[Denice Langley · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no such thing as a bad Johnstone western. Each series is built around main characters whose belief in the law and family is absolute, even if they've had to be reformed to get there. From Preacher, the original mountain man to the Jensen family to Perly Gates, to.....well, you get the point. Many times, characters from one series will show up in another as supporting hands. The communities are true to the era, clothing, guns, food and troubles are all what you'd find if you looked them up in the history books. No two stories are the same, each character or set of characters is unique and so are their stories. The writing is skillful, readers are pulled into the story and you will laugh and cry right along with the characters. I made the mistake of picking up a Johnstone western my uncle was reading. Ive been hooked ever since. Now I share them with my reading family and will continue as long as new Johnstones are released.

[Peter McClure · Rating 1 out of 5]

100% AI slop, and particularly bad AI slop at that. No way a human wrote this. One sentence a gun is in one character's possession, the next sentence the same gun has always been in a different character's possession. The town lady has always been one character's girlfriend, then in the next chapter the same girl has always been a different character's girlfriend. The first two chapters are nearly word for word copies of each other, with the exact same sequence of events repeating themselves. It takes literally 100 pages for anything, I mean ANYTHING to happen. Characters with no relevance are randomly referred to by full name, with no bearing on the story. It's really hard to find the words to describe just what a complete nonsensical pile of AI garbage this is. Maybe I'll ask ChatGPT to finish this review for me since I can't be bothered to more effort into it than the prompt engineer did to make this book. If you liked this book you failed the Turing Test.