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Morgan Clyde #1
Smoke Wagon
Spur Award winner and bestselling western author Brett Cogburn crafts a post-Civil War railway thriller.
Last stop on the train ride to hell.
Welcome to Ironhead Station, Indian Territory, where the train tracks end and the real action begins. The hell-on-wheels construction camp is the final destination for hard-drinking sinners, gamblers, and outlaws. And woe to the man who tries to clean it up.
Morgan Clyde is a former New York City policeman and Union sharpshooter who lost everything in the Civil War. But he's still got his guns and his guts. Some folks say he is meaner and tougher than the Devil himself. Which is why the owners of the MK&T Railroad hired Clyde for one hell of a job. They plan to extend the rails through Indian Territory, connecting Missouri and Kansas to Texas ... But the ornery citizens of Ironhead Station want to keep things just the way they are. They've already killed the first two lawmen who tried to tame their town. Now they've put together a welcome wagon to greet Clyde, including one half-mad preacher, one hillbilly assassin, and twenty train-robbing bushwhackers. They're laying plans to stop the railroad dead in its tracks--along with their new lawman.
There's just two things the folks of Ironhead Station didn't take into account: you can't stop the wheels of progress. And you can't stop a legend like Morgan Clyde.
Last stop on the train ride to hell.
Welcome to Ironhead Station, Indian Territory, where the train tracks end and the real action begins. The hell-on-wheels construction camp is the final destination for hard-drinking sinners, gamblers, and outlaws. And woe to the man who tries to clean it up.
Morgan Clyde is a former New York City policeman and Union sharpshooter who lost everything in the Civil War. But he's still got his guns and his guts. Some folks say he is meaner and tougher than the Devil himself. Which is why the owners of the MK&T Railroad hired Clyde for one hell of a job. They plan to extend the rails through Indian Territory, connecting Missouri and Kansas to Texas ... But the ornery citizens of Ironhead Station want to keep things just the way they are. They've already killed the first two lawmen who tried to tame their town. Now they've put together a welcome wagon to greet Clyde, including one half-mad preacher, one hillbilly assassin, and twenty train-robbing bushwhackers. They're laying plans to stop the railroad dead in its tracks--along with their new lawman.
There's just two things the folks of Ironhead Station didn't take into account: you can't stop the wheels of progress. And you can't stop a legend like Morgan Clyde.
563 pages, Hardcover
Published September 20, 2017
20 people are currently reading
379 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 29, 2020
Good, reliable western where good guys win. I enjoyed this book and could just picture John Wayne playing Morgan Clyde.
December 31, 2021
Smoke Wagon by Brett Cogburn
Morgan Clyde #1
Well written, action packed, Western with a legendary hero starring as the lead character – Morgan Clyde is bigger than life but bleeds like any other man.
I was swept into Ironhead Station along with our hero. It is noisy, dirty, filled with the desperate and those milking the men of their money. It is a place not many would choose to live…unless they had a good reason to be there. And, some of them had good reasons while others had evil ones. Chief Clyde was commissioned to set the town to rights and that is what he set out to do.
What I liked:
* Morgan Clyde: Yankee Civil War Veteran, divorced, father, lawman, sharpshooter, lethal, liked by some and hated by others…a force to be reckoned with…but also very human. Reminded me of a few characters such as Gunsmoke’s Matt Dillon and perhaps a Western Jack Reacher.
* Dixie Rayburn: Reb Civil War Veteran, lawman, deputy to Chief Clyde, talkative, likable, someone I want to know more about.
* Red Molly: mixed feelings about her…kind of the fallen lady with a heart of…not gold but perhaps a soft spot for Clyde. She has her own set of issues…to be sure.
* The bad guys…and there were plenty of them.
* The descriptions: appealed to all the senses and made me feel as if I was there with the rest of the characters.
* Some of the supporting characters: blacksmith, cook, engineer building the line, Harjo and his men, and a few others
* That some of the bad guys were dealt with
* The characters – good and bad – were well fleshed out guys and not always but the person one would expect
* That justice, of sorts, was meted out to a few of the bad
* The historical references
* That there will be more books in the series to look forward to
What I didn’t like:
* The people I was meant to not like and the actions they were involved in
* Not having a clear conclusion to the story though this is a series and we have an inkling of where it might go
What I would have liked:
* I found myself skipping around to follow one story line or another and that made me think that this book could have been broken into two or three separate books. It was fine as it was but it might have been better, for me, if Clyde had dealt with one issue/person/group and settled things then had a new issue to deal with in the next book.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes – but enjoyed the beginning the most and the end…middle was skimmed a bit.
Would I read another book in this series? Yes
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington-Pinnacle Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
4-5
Morgan Clyde #1
Well written, action packed, Western with a legendary hero starring as the lead character – Morgan Clyde is bigger than life but bleeds like any other man.
I was swept into Ironhead Station along with our hero. It is noisy, dirty, filled with the desperate and those milking the men of their money. It is a place not many would choose to live…unless they had a good reason to be there. And, some of them had good reasons while others had evil ones. Chief Clyde was commissioned to set the town to rights and that is what he set out to do.
What I liked:
* Morgan Clyde: Yankee Civil War Veteran, divorced, father, lawman, sharpshooter, lethal, liked by some and hated by others…a force to be reckoned with…but also very human. Reminded me of a few characters such as Gunsmoke’s Matt Dillon and perhaps a Western Jack Reacher.
* Dixie Rayburn: Reb Civil War Veteran, lawman, deputy to Chief Clyde, talkative, likable, someone I want to know more about.
* Red Molly: mixed feelings about her…kind of the fallen lady with a heart of…not gold but perhaps a soft spot for Clyde. She has her own set of issues…to be sure.
* The bad guys…and there were plenty of them.
* The descriptions: appealed to all the senses and made me feel as if I was there with the rest of the characters.
* Some of the supporting characters: blacksmith, cook, engineer building the line, Harjo and his men, and a few others
* That some of the bad guys were dealt with
* The characters – good and bad – were well fleshed out guys and not always but the person one would expect
* That justice, of sorts, was meted out to a few of the bad
* The historical references
* That there will be more books in the series to look forward to
What I didn’t like:
* The people I was meant to not like and the actions they were involved in
* Not having a clear conclusion to the story though this is a series and we have an inkling of where it might go
What I would have liked:
* I found myself skipping around to follow one story line or another and that made me think that this book could have been broken into two or three separate books. It was fine as it was but it might have been better, for me, if Clyde had dealt with one issue/person/group and settled things then had a new issue to deal with in the next book.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes – but enjoyed the beginning the most and the end…middle was skimmed a bit.
Would I read another book in this series? Yes
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington-Pinnacle Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
4-5
December 29, 2021
Thanks to netgalley.com and Kensington Publishing for the advance arc copy for my honest review.
Smoke Wagon was my first read by author Brett Cogburn that had his name as author on it and pretty sure he's another piece to the puzzle as to who is ghost writing for the William W. Johnstone brand.
What a total disappointment, having previously read " The Trainwreckets" and "Lost Mountain Pass", was like cool, based on the description this one will be good. Oh, how wrong, those two books, killed "Smoke Wagon" for me.
While I did like Morgan and Molly, the writing was helliously slow, overloaded with needless details, slow burner action wise and "Strong Justice" made me realize or I thought the writing didn't fit the 19th century Indian Territory.
While I did DNF it. It was the authors own words, that made me get the urg to ask myself do you really care how this one ends? When that happens, I just consider it read.
Smoke Wagon was my first read by author Brett Cogburn that had his name as author on it and pretty sure he's another piece to the puzzle as to who is ghost writing for the William W. Johnstone brand.
What a total disappointment, having previously read " The Trainwreckets" and "Lost Mountain Pass", was like cool, based on the description this one will be good. Oh, how wrong, those two books, killed "Smoke Wagon" for me.
While I did like Morgan and Molly, the writing was helliously slow, overloaded with needless details, slow burner action wise and "Strong Justice" made me realize or I thought the writing didn't fit the 19th century Indian Territory.
While I did DNF it. It was the authors own words, that made me get the urg to ask myself do you really care how this one ends? When that happens, I just consider it read.
February 3, 2022
I gave this book as high as two stars for the fast-paced action and vivid detail, and as low as two stars for the racism and sexism riddled throughout.
This was my first time reading a western and I was left feeling relatively disappointed. Maybe I am just too much of a modern-day feminist to fit into the demographic that is Brett Cogburn's reader, but I was severely turned off by the numerous racial slurs used, the sexist portrayals of women, and a particularly disturbing part where a 14-year-old female character (a child) was sexualized for a reason I am still scratching my head over. Through the MC's POV (a late-thirties to early-forties white male), the child was described as "a thin little wisp of a girl, maybe fourteen or so, with pale blond hair and a pair of large blue eyes. It was already easy to see that she would one day be a beautiful woman." And then, a few chapters later the child's mother states, "'My Suzy is a pretty girl... I don't like how some of the men in this camp look at her, and she's still too young to know that they're looking and what some might be thinking.'" The child's brief presence in the book lent nothing to the plot, although I continued reading in anticipation that her odd description was foreshadowing for a portion of the story that would explain away her cringe-worthy introduction, but she never reappeared. It was as if Cogburn simply wanted to include an underage beauty for the pleasure of the reader and leave it at that.
I must admit that I admire Cogburn's dedication to historical accuracy, but even then I feel as if he used the "historical" in "historical fiction" to justify his use of the n-word, calling First Americans "Indians," and referring to female characters as "whores" many more times than he ever referred to them as "women." Is that how many white people spoke in the late 1800s? Certainly. But is that type of language necessary to include in a novel written in 2017 for the modern reader? In my opinion, no. I believe it is possible to write a colorful and action-packed western without dragging in slurs and stereotypes from that time period. It was very apparent that Cogburn wrote this book for a specific individual, and I as a thirty-year-old female in favor of a western mindful of today's social standards, am not that person.
This was my first time reading a western and I was left feeling relatively disappointed. Maybe I am just too much of a modern-day feminist to fit into the demographic that is Brett Cogburn's reader, but I was severely turned off by the numerous racial slurs used, the sexist portrayals of women, and a particularly disturbing part where a 14-year-old female character (a child) was sexualized for a reason I am still scratching my head over. Through the MC's POV (a late-thirties to early-forties white male), the child was described as "a thin little wisp of a girl, maybe fourteen or so, with pale blond hair and a pair of large blue eyes. It was already easy to see that she would one day be a beautiful woman." And then, a few chapters later the child's mother states, "'My Suzy is a pretty girl... I don't like how some of the men in this camp look at her, and she's still too young to know that they're looking and what some might be thinking.'" The child's brief presence in the book lent nothing to the plot, although I continued reading in anticipation that her odd description was foreshadowing for a portion of the story that would explain away her cringe-worthy introduction, but she never reappeared. It was as if Cogburn simply wanted to include an underage beauty for the pleasure of the reader and leave it at that.
I must admit that I admire Cogburn's dedication to historical accuracy, but even then I feel as if he used the "historical" in "historical fiction" to justify his use of the n-word, calling First Americans "Indians," and referring to female characters as "whores" many more times than he ever referred to them as "women." Is that how many white people spoke in the late 1800s? Certainly. But is that type of language necessary to include in a novel written in 2017 for the modern reader? In my opinion, no. I believe it is possible to write a colorful and action-packed western without dragging in slurs and stereotypes from that time period. It was very apparent that Cogburn wrote this book for a specific individual, and I as a thirty-year-old female in favor of a western mindful of today's social standards, am not that person.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 10, 2022
In Brett Cogburn's Smoke Wagon (Pinnacle Books 2021), Book 1 in the Morgan Clyde Western series, Morgan Clyde has a reputation as a fearless gunslinger with a bias for justice enhanced by a maverick streak. He’s usually hired by desperate people to clean up lawless situations, willing to look the other way to justify the ends. That's what brings him to Ironhead Station, a settlement in Indian Territory that is not yet under the jurisdiction of any US laws. As the current last stop on a railroad being built, the developers can’t get any farther until the lawlessness that prevents the track's completion is removed. Morgan is brought in to do just that, no questions asked, at least enough that the railroad can complete its work and move on to the next undeveloped stop. Though Clyde has done this sort of impossible work often in the past, this particular job turns out to be one of his most difficult yet.
The story is steeped in the gritty details of the Old West with a peek at the dirty underside and the tough men who made the railroad expansion across America happen. It is action packed and realistic, but a touch dark as far as the people who populate this world and the borderline illegal actions of even those who try to tame the monster.
The story is steeped in the gritty details of the Old West with a peek at the dirty underside and the tough men who made the railroad expansion across America happen. It is action packed and realistic, but a touch dark as far as the people who populate this world and the borderline illegal actions of even those who try to tame the monster.
January 1, 2025
Brett Cogburn’s “Smoke Wagon” is exactly what it promises: a loud, leathery western that kicks down the saloon doors, empties its revolver, and leaves the bartender to clean up the mess. It’s the literary equivalent of a spaghetti western marathon on a hungover Sunday. There’s grit, gunfire, and just enough smirking bravado to keep the tumbleweeds rolling, but don’t expect it to reinvent the wheel. Or even bother oiling it.
Morgan Clyde, the hero, strides through the carnage like a frontier Terminator. He’s shot, punched, and presumably concussed, yet manages to emerge from every scrap with little more than a poetic scratch. The villains, on the other hand, drop like they’ve been shot by cannons instead of six-shooters. It’s an endless parade of casualties that makes one wonder if the Old West had any men left to build railroads after all this carnage or if tumbleweeds started rolling just to avoid being gunned down.
The prose does try for realism, at least in its dialogue and commitment to physical detail. Characters spit, bleed, and groan with convincing anguish, though often just long enough to collapse in dramatic heaps while Morgan dusts himself off. Yet this realism stumbles against the cartoonish action sequences where bodies pile up faster than chairs in a closing pub. For all the mud and sweat, the novel never quite decides if it wants to be a hard-edged character study or a high-noon pantomime with villains twirling imaginary moustaches.
Speaking of clichés, Molly - the inevitable ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ - makes her entrance with the kind of tragic allure that suggests she was assembled in the same factory as every other brothel-dwelling love interest in Western fiction. She’s likeable, sure, but also the sort of character you could swap out for any other fictional Molly without losing much. And then there’s the supporting cast, a procession of faces that drift in, mumble a line, and evaporate. If Chekhov’s gun had this many redundancies, it’d be buried in the desert by chapter three.
The pacing drags like a three-legged mule thanks to Cogburn’s devotion to describing every hat, saddle, and grain of sand in vivid detail. The action, when it finally arrives, hits hard but never fast enough to make up for the long slogs in between.
As for the cliffhanger ending, it’s less a nail-biter and more a polite shove toward a sequel that I have no intention of reading. “Smoke Wagon” is fine if you like your westerns loud, familiar, and lightly soaked in testosterone. But for all its smoke and bravado, the gun never quite goes off.
⭐ ⭐
Morgan Clyde, the hero, strides through the carnage like a frontier Terminator. He’s shot, punched, and presumably concussed, yet manages to emerge from every scrap with little more than a poetic scratch. The villains, on the other hand, drop like they’ve been shot by cannons instead of six-shooters. It’s an endless parade of casualties that makes one wonder if the Old West had any men left to build railroads after all this carnage or if tumbleweeds started rolling just to avoid being gunned down.
The prose does try for realism, at least in its dialogue and commitment to physical detail. Characters spit, bleed, and groan with convincing anguish, though often just long enough to collapse in dramatic heaps while Morgan dusts himself off. Yet this realism stumbles against the cartoonish action sequences where bodies pile up faster than chairs in a closing pub. For all the mud and sweat, the novel never quite decides if it wants to be a hard-edged character study or a high-noon pantomime with villains twirling imaginary moustaches.
Speaking of clichés, Molly - the inevitable ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ - makes her entrance with the kind of tragic allure that suggests she was assembled in the same factory as every other brothel-dwelling love interest in Western fiction. She’s likeable, sure, but also the sort of character you could swap out for any other fictional Molly without losing much. And then there’s the supporting cast, a procession of faces that drift in, mumble a line, and evaporate. If Chekhov’s gun had this many redundancies, it’d be buried in the desert by chapter three.
The pacing drags like a three-legged mule thanks to Cogburn’s devotion to describing every hat, saddle, and grain of sand in vivid detail. The action, when it finally arrives, hits hard but never fast enough to make up for the long slogs in between.
As for the cliffhanger ending, it’s less a nail-biter and more a polite shove toward a sequel that I have no intention of reading. “Smoke Wagon” is fine if you like your westerns loud, familiar, and lightly soaked in testosterone. But for all its smoke and bravado, the gun never quite goes off.
⭐ ⭐
December 10, 2021
It was a good western book in that the good guy always wins, albeit with many scars and battles that would be too much for any "normal" man. Morgan Clyde is a no nonsense type of guy that walks away from fighting with a scratch but the bad guys are broken. There was a lot of descriptive killing, and more killing and more killing. It's amazing that there is anybody left out west after all the murders that went on. The ending was definietly a cliff hanger, but I have no need/desire to read the sequel.
January 28, 2020
A really entertaining and gritty tale. I was pulled in quickly and kept engaged by the characters. I love the setting and other historical gems naturally intertwined throughout the story. Putting Cogburn's other books on my list to read.
December 28, 2024
I don't give up on books easily, and by the end of the first chapter I hated the arrogant, conceited, straight-out-of-spaghetti-western hero, Morgan Clyde. Because I so enjoyed the Widowmaker Jones westerns by the same author, I hung in a bit longer, and by the end of the book I was glad that I did.
While my first impressions of Clyde were a bit negative, the author allowed him to grow on me a bit. As I read through the book I realized that while Clyde was the central figure of the book, the novel really wasn't about him. The book is about the political and economic turmoil on the frontier and Cogburn gets it all right. The competitive railroad barons. The opportunistic people who follow the track builders in order to feed off of the workers. The anger remaining from the Civil War. The racism towards the black troops from Ft. Gibson. The arrogance of the Pinkerton people. The attitude towards the Irish immigrants. Cogburn delves into each of these via solid dialogue that utilizes western idioms, stereotypes, and language. He builds an end-of-track town, full of mud, filth, tents, and people, both evil and good. He paints a masterpiece picture of the Old West.
Cogburn gets the guns right. He knows their capabilities as well as their limitations.
Cogburn gets the horses and horsemanship right.
Cogburn not only builds a town and populates it with true-to-life characters, he provides multiple plotlines as he shows the reader how these people all want to further their own agendas, evil or good. He offers the reader insights into their hurts and triumphs. Morgan Clyde's cold indifference is really a cover for his own painful life experiences. His arrogance and confidence is a bit annoying at times.
What the reader gets is an in-depth portrait of the west that is ever bit as vivid as a Remington sketch or a C.M. Russel painting. Readers of western lore need look no further. As of right now, Brett Cogburn is my favorite western writer.
While my first impressions of Clyde were a bit negative, the author allowed him to grow on me a bit. As I read through the book I realized that while Clyde was the central figure of the book, the novel really wasn't about him. The book is about the political and economic turmoil on the frontier and Cogburn gets it all right. The competitive railroad barons. The opportunistic people who follow the track builders in order to feed off of the workers. The anger remaining from the Civil War. The racism towards the black troops from Ft. Gibson. The arrogance of the Pinkerton people. The attitude towards the Irish immigrants. Cogburn delves into each of these via solid dialogue that utilizes western idioms, stereotypes, and language. He builds an end-of-track town, full of mud, filth, tents, and people, both evil and good. He paints a masterpiece picture of the Old West.
Cogburn gets the guns right. He knows their capabilities as well as their limitations.
Cogburn gets the horses and horsemanship right.
Cogburn not only builds a town and populates it with true-to-life characters, he provides multiple plotlines as he shows the reader how these people all want to further their own agendas, evil or good. He offers the reader insights into their hurts and triumphs. Morgan Clyde's cold indifference is really a cover for his own painful life experiences. His arrogance and confidence is a bit annoying at times.
What the reader gets is an in-depth portrait of the west that is ever bit as vivid as a Remington sketch or a C.M. Russel painting. Readers of western lore need look no further. As of right now, Brett Cogburn is my favorite western writer.
January 10, 2022
In Brett Cogburn's Smoke Wagon (Pinnacle Books 2021), Book 1 in the Morgan Clyde Western series, Morgan Clyde has a reputation as a fearless gunslinger with a bias for justice enhanced by a maverick streak. He’s usually hired by desperate people to clean up lawless situations, willing to look the other way to justify the ends. That's what brings him to Ironhead Station, a settlement in Indian Territory that is not yet under the jurisdiction of any US laws. As the current last stop on a railroad being built, the developers can’t get any farther until the lawlessness that prevents the track's completion is removed. Morgan is brought in to do just that, no questions asked, at least enough that the railroad can complete its work and move on to the next undeveloped stop. Though Clyde has done this sort of impossible work often in the past, this particular job turns out to be one of his most difficult yet.
The story is steeped in the gritty details of the Old West with a peek at the dirty underside and the tough men who made the railroad expansion across America happen. It is action packed and realistic, but a touch dark as far as the people who populate this world and the borderline illegal actions of even those who try to tame the monster.
The story is steeped in the gritty details of the Old West with a peek at the dirty underside and the tough men who made the railroad expansion across America happen. It is action packed and realistic, but a touch dark as far as the people who populate this world and the borderline illegal actions of even those who try to tame the monster.
December 23, 2023
I'm a diehard fan of good westerns. I seldom meet another person who loves them as much as I do.....with the exception of my uncles who first introduced me to the genre many, many years ago. Brett Cogburn promotes himself as the great grandson of the original Rooster Cogburn but I read his books because he definitely knows how to write westerns that keep his fans happy and coming back for more. His heroes are tough men, usually with nothing to lose but plenty to fight for so they are determined to civilize those who would see this era remain as the last home of the unlawful men that make their livings off the backs of others. And so we get to SMOKE WAGON. Morgan Clyde has been hired to enforce the law by the railroad companies who must lay track through some of the most unfriendly land in Indian Territory. Cogburn's characters and back grounds are true to the era and pull readers back to the late 1800's when the railroads were pushing through to every major port and cattle ranch to move animals, people and goods to an ever expanding United States. The character of Morgan Clyde and towns detailed in Smoke Wagon gave me the feeling of stepping back into history. Just what a great western should do.
December 5, 2021
Smoke Wagon review
I’ve never read a book by Brett Cogburn before, so I thought it would be fun to read a Western from the great-grandson of the man who inspired Rooster Cogburn.
Smoke Wagon starts with the main character, Morgan Clyde coming into a railroad encampment to clean it up. Lots of shenanigans and gunfights ensue and the book comes to a rousing conclusion.
I liked a lot of the side characters. Especially deputy Dixie. The villains were great, as well.
I’d like to say that the story moved along well, but to me it didn’t.
Something just seemed off with the pacing for the whole book. Some parts seemed rushed, while other parts just seemed to take a while to end.
That being said, I won’t hesitate to read another book by Brett Cogburn.
I’ve never read a book by Brett Cogburn before, so I thought it would be fun to read a Western from the great-grandson of the man who inspired Rooster Cogburn.
Smoke Wagon starts with the main character, Morgan Clyde coming into a railroad encampment to clean it up. Lots of shenanigans and gunfights ensue and the book comes to a rousing conclusion.
I liked a lot of the side characters. Especially deputy Dixie. The villains were great, as well.
I’d like to say that the story moved along well, but to me it didn’t.
Something just seemed off with the pacing for the whole book. Some parts seemed rushed, while other parts just seemed to take a while to end.
That being said, I won’t hesitate to read another book by Brett Cogburn.
September 28, 2021
With lots of characters and lots and lots of action, this is a book I can recommend. And an author I intend to read more of.
The cover claims "The Great-Grandson of Rooster Cogburn" which might be untrue, but is funny and inviting.
According to the mini-bio at the back of the book, author Brett Cogburn was an English major who took a minor in history. He devotes a couple pages on the history of some firearms, but at one point misspells "martial law" as "marshal law."
Generally this book is well written, has characters a reader will want to know, and almost never lets up, even to give those characters, not to mention readers, a real rest.
The cover claims "The Great-Grandson of Rooster Cogburn" which might be untrue, but is funny and inviting.
According to the mini-bio at the back of the book, author Brett Cogburn was an English major who took a minor in history. He devotes a couple pages on the history of some firearms, but at one point misspells "martial law" as "marshal law."
Generally this book is well written, has characters a reader will want to know, and almost never lets up, even to give those characters, not to mention readers, a real rest.
May 8, 2023
I read another book by this author and really enjoyed it so I thought I would read another of his books. This one is a more typical western and I do enjoy reading westerns occasionally, but my expectations may have been too high based on the other book by Cogburn that I read. This one is an average western story that takes place in a lawless railway camp. What I didn't like about it, is that it left several questions unanswered at the end of the book. Is this to tempt the reader to read the next one? That only works when the book is gripping enough to leave the reading wanting to continue. Unfortunately, this one is not.
March 13, 2023
I don't often read westerns, but every now and then I get an itching to pick one up and go for a ride back to the old west where most men were scoundrels and most women were "soiled doves." This one fit the description. Lots of bad guys, a couple of good guys who didn't ask a lot of questions before their guns fired, but were also an interesting mix of outlaw and in-law. Captivating entertainment.
December 2, 2021
I read Westerns occasionally and I throughly enjoyed this one. All I can say is Morgan Clyde is one tough dude. Loved the character, Dixie. I hope we hear more from him, in Book No. 2.
I received this book free from Goodreads for a honest opinion.
I received this book free from Goodreads for a honest opinion.
February 15, 2024
A classic style of novel done well. If you do not like the old gritty westerns you will not enjoy this book. This is a rooting tooting western shoot em up. I enjoyed it as a comfort soup read and look forward to more in the series. Till next time y'all take care.
November 21, 2021
Goodreads Kindle Copy Win
It is a charming western with the usual cast of characters and antics. A fun read for those who like stories set in the early days of settlers in America.
It is a charming western with the usual cast of characters and antics. A fun read for those who like stories set in the early days of settlers in America.
April 9, 2022
Good story. Fast paced the way a book/eBook should be.
July 23, 2024
I liked it. I love westerns. All the shoot em ups. This book has plenty of shooting. A lot of people die, but they deserve it.
June 17, 2023
Jeff Book Review #118
Smoke Wagon, Brett Cogburn (western)
Smoke Wagon is a new western (2017). It is kind of laid out in that style of an FX-cable TV show (I kept seeing commercials for AMC's "Hell on Wheels" in my head as I read it) made for modern audiences and trying to capture western law vs outlaw images and drama and long action scenes but without much character depth or moral conflict. There's a lawman named Morgan Clyde who is hired by a train company to bring order to a working camp where they have been trying to build a bridge.
Verdict: A lengthy but easy-to-read trope-heavy western with some interesting characters. It struggles with that cartoon vs reality problem we have when characters behave with superpowers and the villains are over-the-top bad and the action sequences are bombasticly cartoony but the prose is written with realism when it comes to dialogue, stakes, and physical injuries that leave it short of authentic.
Jeff's Rating: 2 / 5 (Okay)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
Smoke Wagon, Brett Cogburn (western)
Smoke Wagon is a new western (2017). It is kind of laid out in that style of an FX-cable TV show (I kept seeing commercials for AMC's "Hell on Wheels" in my head as I read it) made for modern audiences and trying to capture western law vs outlaw images and drama and long action scenes but without much character depth or moral conflict. There's a lawman named Morgan Clyde who is hired by a train company to bring order to a working camp where they have been trying to build a bridge.
Verdict: A lengthy but easy-to-read trope-heavy western with some interesting characters. It struggles with that cartoon vs reality problem we have when characters behave with superpowers and the villains are over-the-top bad and the action sequences are bombasticly cartoony but the prose is written with realism when it comes to dialogue, stakes, and physical injuries that leave it short of authentic.
Jeff's Rating: 2 / 5 (Okay)
movie rating if made into a movie: R
February 2, 2022
My husband read this book because he enjoys Westerns. He loved the book! The story was fast-paced and interesting and a real “page-turner”. The author writes well and the character development is great! Thanks to Kensington Publishers for the Goodreads giveaway.
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