Jonas Hook Books in Order

The Jonas Hook novels tell a darker, more personal story than some of Johnston's battle driven series. Centered on former Confederate soldier Jonah Hook, they follow one man's years long attempt to reclaim his family from a trail of captors that stretches across much of the West.

In Cry of the Hawk Jonah fights for the South, is wounded and captured, and escapes a brutal Union prison camp by agreeing to serve on the frontier as a so called galvanized Yankee. While he is gone, a band of violent religious raiders sweeps through his Missouri valley, killing, looting, and carrying off his wife and children. When Jonah finally returns home to an empty, ruined farm, he sets out to track them down armed with little more than his experience as a scout and a stubborn will.

Winter Rain finds him following leads through Fort Laramie, Mormon settlements in the mountain West, and down into the Texas panhandle. He learns that his sons have been traded into Comanche hands and that his wife lives under the control of the same fanatic who ordered the raid. Along the way he rides with Texas Rangers, crosses violent borderlands, and repeatedly has to choose between simple revenge and the harder work of rescue.

In Dream Catcher Jonah pushes deeper into Utah Territory and the strongholds of the breakaway Mormon band that first tore his family apart. Johnston keeps the focus tight on the obstacles in front of him, from harsh country and wary communities to the memories of what his wife and children have suffered.

Taken together, the three books form one long arc rather than loosely connected adventures. The violence and cruelty of captivity are never far from the page, but so are the quieter scenes of frontier work, camp life, and the rare friendships Jonah manages to build despite being driven by obsession.

Readers who want a revenge and rescue story that still cares about history and place will find that this trilogy moves steadily, and sometimes grimly, toward its end.

Because so many threads carry over from one book to the next, the Jonas Hook novels reward starting with Cry of the Hawk and following Jonah's search straight through Winter Rain and Dream Catcher without skipping around.