Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Devil’s Badland | 2009 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 2 | The Loner | 2009 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 3 | Dead Man’s Gold | 2010 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 4 | Rattlesnake Valley | 2010 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 5 | Seven Days To Die | 2010 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 6 | The Big Gundown | 2010 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 7 | Crossfire | 2011 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 8 | Killer Poker | 2011 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 9 | The Blood of Renegades | 2011 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 10 | The Bounty Killers | 2011 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 11 | Trail of Blood | 2011 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 12 | Brutal Vengeance | 2012 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 13 | Bullets Don’t Die | 2012 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 14 | Hard Luck Money | 2012 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
| 15 | Inferno | 2012 | J.A. Johnstone | Buy |
The Loner series is a spin-off of The Last Gunfighter, following Conrad Browning, the son of Frank Morgan. Conrad did not grow up in the West. He was raised with money, education, and East Coast manners. But personal tragedy changes everything, and he remakes himself as Kid Morgan, a gunfighter cut from a very different cloth than his father but just as dangerous.
The series ran 15 books in a concentrated burst from 2009 to 2012, putting out roughly four books a year. Starting with The Devil’s Badland and the self-titled The Loner, the books follow Conrad as he roams the frontier, getting into trouble in rattlesnake-infested valleys, mining towns, and outlaw hideouts. The premise of a refined man forced to become a killer gives the series a different energy than most Johnstone Westerns. Conrad has to learn a world that his father understood instinctively, and that fish-out-of-water tension makes the early books especially engaging.