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* ApparentlyUnrelatedMurders: In ''Point of Contact'', a murderer hits a string of seemingly unconnected people: different sexes, ages, occupations, social classes, etc. The commection turns out to be they all served on the same jury.
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* ApparentlyUnrelatedMurders: In ''Point of Contact'', a murderer hits a string of seemingly unconnected people: different sexes, ages, occupations, social classes, etc. The commection connection turns out to be they all served on the same jury.
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* ApparentlyUnrelatedMurders: In ''Point of Contact'', a murderer hits a string of seemingly unconnected people: different sexes, ages, occupations, social classes, etc. The commection turns out to be they all served on the same jury.
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* DeadMansHand: "Deadwood August 2nd 1876" in ''J.T.'s Hundredth'' is a fictionalised account of the killing of Wild Bill Hickcok. In it, Hickcok has just discarded his fith card and is reaching for another when he is shot.
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* {{Tuckerization}}: Done as a TakeThat in ''J.T.'s Ladies''. Edson included a gunslinger and his sidekick named Roy Hattersley and Len Murray - named after Labour Party politicians - and three desperados named Alex Kitson, Alan Fisher and David Basnett - all of them well-known trade union leaders.
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* FlayingAlive/ForcedToWatch: The villainess of ''A Town Called Yellowdog'' suffers permanent insanity after a tribe of Kiowa Indians take revenge on her brother for the rape and murder of one of their women. The final chapter is spoilered with the title "She Saw Her Brother Skinned Alive".
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* FlayingAlive/ForcedToWatch: FlayingAlive: The villainess of ''A Town Called Yellowdog'' suffers permanent insanity after a tribe of Kiowa Indians take revenge on her brother for the rape and murder of one of their women. The final chapter is spoilered with the title [[ForcedToWatch "She Saw Her Brother Skinned Alive".Alive"]].
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* FlayingAlive: The villainess of ''A Town Called Yellowdog'' suffers permanent insanity after a tribe of Kiowa Indians take revenge on her brother for the rape and murder of one of their women. The final chapter is spoilered with the title "She Saw Her Brother Skinned Alive".
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* FlayingAlive: FlayingAlive/ForcedToWatch: The villainess of ''A Town Called Yellowdog'' suffers permanent insanity after a tribe of Kiowa Indians take revenge on her brother for the rape and murder of one of their women. The final chapter is spoilered with the title "She Saw Her Brother Skinned Alive".
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John Thomas "J.T." Edson is an English writer of Westerns.
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John Thomas "J.T." Edson is was an English writer of Westerns.
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Edson retired from writing in the 1990s due to failing health.
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Edson retired from writing in the 1990s due to failing health.
health, and died in 2014.
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* UnitentioniallyNotoriousCrime: In ''The Professional Killers'', a pair of hit-men commit MurderByMistake when they gun down a man who matches the description of their target as he gets off a train. It turns out their target had never got on the train and the man they killed was senior sheriff's deputy.
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* UnitentioniallyNotoriousCrime: UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime: In ''The Professional Killers'', a pair of hit-men commit MurderByMistake when they gun down a man who matches the description of their target as he gets off a train. It turns out their target had never got on the train and the man they killed was senior sheriff's deputy.
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* UnitentionallyNotoriousCrime: In ''The Professional Killers'', a pair of hit-men commit MurderByMistake when they gun down a man who matches the description of their target as he gets off a train. It turns out their target had never got on the train and the man they killed was senior sheriff's deputy.
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* UnitentionallyNotoriousCrime: UnitentioniallyNotoriousCrime: In ''The Professional Killers'', a pair of hit-men commit MurderByMistake when they gun down a man who matches the description of their target as he gets off a train. It turns out their target had never got on the train and the man they killed was senior sheriff's deputy.
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* QuickDraw: Most of Edson's heroes are phenomenally fast draws. The Ysabel Kid - who has draw speed of a second - is considered slow compared to the rest of the Floating Outfit. The fastest character is probably Brad Counter of the ''Rockabye County'' series who has the advantage of modern pistols and holsters not available to the WildWest characters. One of the Rockabye County novels is titled ''The 1/4 Second Draw'', which is Brad's best speed.
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* BeardnessProtectionPrgram: Dusty Fog and Waco grow beards when they go undercover as as outlaws on the run to infiltrate the OutlawTown of Hell.
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* BeardnessProtectionPrgram: BeardnessProtectionProgram: Dusty Fog and Waco grow beards when they go undercover as as outlaws on the run to infiltrate the OutlawTown of Hell.
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* BeardnessProtectionPrgram: Dusty Fog and Waco grow beards when they go undercover as as outlaws on the run to infiltrate the OutlawTown of Hell.
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* CattleDrive: Cattle drive feature prominently in several novels, including Edson's first novel ''Trail Boss'.
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* CattleDrive: Cattle drive feature prominently in several novels, including Edson's first novel ''Trail Boss'.Boss''.
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* UnitentionallyNotoriousCrime: In ''The Professional Killers'', a pair of hit-men commit MurderByMistake when they gun down a man who matches the description of their target as he gets off a train. It turns out their target had never got on the train and the man they killed was senior sheriff's deputy.
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* CarnivalOfKillers: In ''Kill Dusty Fog!'', General Trumpeter offers a $1,000 bounty on the head of Captain Dusty Fog, despite this being against the rules of war. Several guerillas make attempts to claim the bounty, before Dusty decides to confront Trumeter directly.
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* CarnivalOfKillers: In ''Kill Dusty Fog!'', General Trumpeter offers a $1,000 bounty on the head of Captain Dusty Fog, despite this being against the rules of war. Several guerillas make attempts to claim the bounty, before Dusty decides to confront Trumeter Trumpeter directly.
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* CampingACrapper: Assassins try to get to the drop on Waxahachie Smith this way in ''Cure the Texas Fever''. Wax turns the tables on them by leaving behind his boots and pants, which is all of him they can see, and sneaking up behind them
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* CampingACrapper: Assassins try to get to the drop on Waxahachie Smith this way in ''Cure the Texas Fever''. Wax turns the tables on them by leaving behind his boots and pants, which is all of him they can see, and sneaking up behind themthem.
* CarnivalOfKillers: In ''Kill Dusty Fog!'', General Trumpeter offers a $1,000 bounty on the head of Captain Dusty Fog, despite this being against the rules of war. Several guerillas make attempts to claim the bounty, before Dusty decides to confront Trumeter directly.
* CarnivalOfKillers: In ''Kill Dusty Fog!'', General Trumpeter offers a $1,000 bounty on the head of Captain Dusty Fog, despite this being against the rules of war. Several guerillas make attempts to claim the bounty, before Dusty decides to confront Trumeter directly.
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* DawnOfTheWildWest: The ''Ole Devil'' novels are set during the Texas War of Independence (1835-37).
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* CattleDrive: Cattle drive feature prominently in several novels, including Edson's first novel ''Trail Boss'.
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* FrontierDoctor: 'Doc' Leroy. 'Doc' was studying medicine when his father's murder caused him to drop out and take work as a cowhand. He spent a lot of time using his medical expertise as a doctor in a ClosestThingWeGot manner. He eventually completed his qualifications in ''Doc Leroy, M.D.''.
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* TheAmericanCivilWar: The setting for [[CaptainObvious The Civil War Series]].
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* TheAmericanCivilWar: UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar: The setting for [[CaptainObvious The Civil War Series]].
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* CavalryOfficer: The ''Ole Devil Hardin'' series and the ''Civil War'' series focus on the careers of 'Ole Devil' Hardin and his nephew Dusty Fog as cavalry officers in wars a generation apart (the Texan War of Independence and the AmericanCivilWar).
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* CavalryOfficer: The ''Ole Devil Hardin'' series and the ''Civil War'' series focus on the careers of 'Ole Devil' Hardin and his nephew Dusty Fog as cavalry officers in wars a generation apart (the Texan War of Independence and the AmericanCivilWar).UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar).
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* YouAreInCommandNow: ''You're in Command Now, Mr Fog'' by J.T.Edson tells how, as a 17-year-old first lieutenant, Dusty Fog found himself in command of a company during the AmericanCivilWar.
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* YouAreInCommandNow: ''You're in Command Now, Mr Fog'' by J.T.Edson tells how, as a 17-year-old first lieutenant, Dusty Fog found himself in command of a company during the AmericanCivilWar.UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar.
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* {{Rewrite}}: A large number of Edson's later novels were 'expansions' of earlier short stories. These novels usually change substantial details of the earlier stories. Perhaps the most significant of the changes is revealing that Dusty Fog had married much earlier than Edson had previously established.
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* RealNameAlias: Dusty Fog frequently uses his middle names Edward Marsden as an alias.
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* RealNameAlias: RealNameAsAnAlias: Dusty Fog frequently uses his middle names Edward Marsden as an alias.
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* RealNameAlias: Dusty Fog frequently uses his middle names Edward Marsden as an alias.
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* ObfuscatingStupidity: In the ''Company Z'' novels, Sergeant Jubal Branch plays the part of ignorant hick, deliberately mispronouncing words, in order to make criminals underestimate him.
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* ChainedHeat: Company Z stage this in ''Rapido Clint'': having Alvin Fog pose as a criminal and handcuffing him to a wanted felon, then orchestrating an escape so the felon will take Alvin to his boss.
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* ButLiquorIsQuicker: In one of the ''Alvin Fog'' novels, one of the villains Company Z take vengeance on is a rapist who plied a teenage girl with alcohol-laced lemonade.
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* ButLiquorIsQuicker: In one ''The Justice of the ''Alvin Fog'' novels, Company Z'', one of the villains Company Z take vengeance on is a rapist who plied a teenage girl with alcohol-laced lemonade.
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* BulletDancing: Wannabe hardcase Bill Wendee does this to the local schoolteacher in the short story "Bill Wendee Likes an Edge" in ''Sagebrush Sleuth''.
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* AHandfulForAnEye: The fake Belle Starr does this to a shotgun guard in ''Waco's Badge''.
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* AHandfulForAnEye: AHandfulForAnEye:
** The fake Belle Starr does this to a shotgun guard in ''Waco'sBadge''.Badge''.
** Waco tosses a glass of lemonade into Bill Wendee's face to blind him when Wendee pulls a knife on him in "Bill Wendee Likes an Edge" in ''Sagebrush Sleuth''.
** The fake Belle Starr does this to a shotgun guard in ''Waco's
** Waco tosses a glass of lemonade into Bill Wendee's face to blind him when Wendee pulls a knife on him in "Bill Wendee Likes an Edge" in ''Sagebrush Sleuth''.
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* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands: Waco does it in "Jase Holmes's Killer" in ''Sagebrush Sleuth''. He does it with the collusion of the man he was drawing against, in order to prove that the man was not really a fast gun.
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* ShootTheRope: Waco does this to save the Apache scout Johnny No-Legs from being lynched by a wagon train in "A Rope for Johnny No-Legs" in ''Sagebrush Sleuth''.
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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/edson_8322.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:J.T. Edson and some of his heroines]]
John Thomas "J.T." Edson is an English writer of Westerns.
He was born in 1928 near the border of the county of Derbyshire, England, in a small mining village, Whitwell, and was obsessed with Westerns from an early age. In his 20s and 30s, he spent 12 years in the British Army as a dog trainer. It was during this time that he began writing to alleviate boredom during long periods in barracks.
Upon leaving the army, J.T. won second prize (with ''Trail Boss'') in the Western division of a literary competition run by Brown & Watson Ltd, which led to the publication of 46 novels with them, becoming a major earner for the company. He also wrote a series of short stories (''Dan Hollick, Dog Handler'') for the ''Victor'' boys papers, and wrote the "box captions" for comic strips, which he credited with instilling discipline and the ability to convey maximum information with minimum words.
His writing career forged ahead when he joined Corgi Books in the late 1960s, which gave J.T. exposure through a major publishing house, as well as the opportunity to branch out from the core Westerns into the Rockabye County police procedurals, the science-fiction hero Bunduki and other series.
J.T. Edson wrote 136 books, spread primarily across nine series, although there were several stand-alone novels.
His main series are:
* OLE DEVIL HARDIN SERIES (5 books): The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin, Dusty Fog's uncle, during the Texan War of Independence (1836).
* THE CIVIL WAR SERIES (13 books): The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin and the members of the Floating Outfit during the American Civil War (1861 -1865).
* THE FLOATING OUTFIT SERIES (66 books): The exploits of the Floating Outfit. This group consists of Dusty Fog, Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid. This trio is joined by various others during the 10-year span of the novels (1870–1880) such as Waco, Doc Leroy and Red Blaze.
* THE WACO SERIES (7 books): About the adventures of former Floating Outfit member Waco.
* THE CALAMITY JANE SERIES (12 books): The adventures of Calamity Jane, a friend of the Floating Outfit.
* THE WAXAHACHIE SMITH SERIES (3 books): Smith is an associate of the Floating Outfit and a former Texas Ranger.
* THE COMPANY Z SERIES (6 books): This series outlines the adventures of the grandsons of Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid and Mark Counter, (Alvin Fog, Mark Scrapton and Rance Smith respectively) in this extra-legal company of Texas Rangers.
* THE ROCKABYE COUNTY SERIES (11 books): This series is about the Rockabye County Sherrif's department, of whom Brad Counter, Mark Counter's great-grandson, is a member.
* THE BUNDUKI SERIES (4 books): A PlanetaryRomance series about Mark Counter's great-grandson James Allenvale 'Bunduki' Gunn, who is abducted by aliens known as 'Suppliers' to act as a game warden for the planet Zillikian.
Edson retired from writing in the 1990s due to failing health.
!!J.T. Edson's novels provide examples of:
* AbnormalAmmo: The short story "Some Knowledge of the Knife" was a murder mystery in which the assassination weapon was an oddly-balanced knife fired from a large-bore "wall gun".
* AcademyOfEvil: Bekinsop's Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk in ''Blonde Genius''.
* TheAce: Amanda 'The School Swot' Tweedle
* ActionGirl: Calamity Jane, Dawn Drummond-Clayton, Belle Boyd... Pretty much all of J.T.'s heroines qualify. Even Dusty's gently-bred cousin Betty Hardin can beat Dusty at judo if he gets careless and fight several times her own weight in outlaws when she's not dominating them by sheer force of will (short story "The Quartet").
* AmazonBrigade: ''The Bad Bunch''
* AnimalAssassin: In ''Cure the Texas Fever'', one of the attempts to kill Waxahachie Smith involves unleashing an enraged longhorn steer to run him down.
* AsTheGoodBookSays: Deputy Marshal Solomon Wisdom 'Solly' Cole is fond of quoting Bible verses. Some of them are made up out of the whole cloth, with Solly relying on the fact that reprobates he is lecturing will not have the biblical knowledge necessary to contradict him.
* AuthorAppeal: J.T.'s heroines are always well-endowed, even in historical periods when this was not considered the ideal of female beauty.
* TheAmericanCivilWar: The setting for [[CaptainObvious The Civil War Series]].
* ArcherArchetype: Dawn Drummond-Clayton from the ''Bunduki'' novels. Bunduki himself is also an expert with the bow, but is more likely to get into melee combat than Dawn, and Dawn is definitely the more analytical of the two.
* BadHabits: Villains disguising themselves as clergymen or nuns is a common tactic in Edson's novels. Examples occur in ''The Remittance Kid'', ''The Sheriff of Rockabye County'' and ''Diamonds, Emeralds, Cards and Colts''.
* {{Bandito}}
* BangingForHelp: Doc Leroy, temporarily working as a lawman, was coshed and immobilised to prevent his interfering with a planned robbery. (The crooks didn't kill him as they didn't want to spend the rest of their likely-to-be-short lives running away from the Floating Outfit.) He was reduced to banging on the floor of the hotel room he was shut up in, hoping to attract attention.
* BecauseImJonesy: In ''The Bad Bunch'', Belle Boyd poses as Belle Starr in order to infiltrate an all-female outlaw gang. Unfortunately for her, the real Belle Starr had the same idea.
* BreastAttack: A frequent event during the lovingly described {{Cat Fight}}s.
* {{Bulungi}}: Ambagazali from the Bunduki short stories.
* ButLiquorIsQuicker: In one of the ''Alvin Fog'' novels, one of the villains Company Z take vengeance on is a rapist who plied a teenage girl with alcohol-laced lemonade.
* CampingACrapper: Assassins try to get to the drop on Waxahachie Smith this way in ''Cure the Texas Fever''. Wax turns the tables on them by leaving behind his boots and pants, which is all of him they can see, and sneaking up behind them
* CatFight: A frequent occurrence and always lovingly described.
* CattleBaron: Charles Goodnight is a heroic example. John Chisum is a more typical CorruptHick type.
* CavalryOfficer: The ''Ole Devil Hardin'' series and the ''Civil War'' series focus on the careers of 'Ole Devil' Hardin and his nephew Dusty Fog as cavalry officers in wars a generation apart (the Texan War of Independence and the AmericanCivilWar).
* CigarChomper: John Slaughter
* CigarFuseLighting: Done by bad guy Santone in ''Rio Guns''.
* ClassyCatBurglar: Libby Craddock from ''Texas Kidnappers'', although her exact level of classiness depends upon her mood.
* CombatMedic: 'Doc' Leroy.
* ConvenientMisfire: J.T. Edson disliked it when guns jammed or misfired for no reason in movies, so whenever it happened in his novels he would give a detailed explanation of what caused the gun to jam (usually poor maintenance on the bad guy's part). That said, it still happened several times when it was convenient for his heroes. The short story "Jubal Branch's Lucky B.A.R." was one example.
* CounterEarth: Zillikan, the setting for the ''Bunduki'' series.
* CounterfeitCash: ''The Rebel Spy'', ''Two Miles to the Border''
* CoversAlwaysLie: The covers of many J.T. Edson novels feature generic western scenes that bear no real connection to the contents of the book. And some are just flat out wrong. The Corgi edition of ''The Remittance Kid'' shows a gunfight on the deserted main street of tiny frontier town. The novel takes place entirely in Chicago.
* CripplingTheCompetition: Waxahachie Smith had his trigger fingers removed by vengeful foes.
* DirectLineToTheAuthor
* DivorcedInstallment: ''Blonde Genius'' was originally written as a plot for a ''StTrinians'' movie.
* DressingAsTheEnemy: A common tactic of Company C in the ''Civil War'' series. Sometimes it was not even necessary to dress in enemy uniforms as the only difference between the Federal and Confederate uniforms was the colour, so in near darkness it was quite easy to pass yourself off as a member of the opposing side.
* TheEeyore: Billy Jack
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Horace Rangoon, villain of ''The Rio Hondo Kid'', has a huge chip on his shoulder on account of his first name -- all the more so because his father insisted on shaming him with such a name to disgrace him for being short.
** Calamity Jane is able to keep her freight-driver boss Dobe Killem sweet by threatening to reveal that his given name is Cecil.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Dusty Fog who, though strongly built, is only about five feet five inches tall and continually overlooked by strangers who know him only by reputation. Usefully, one of his associates, Mark Counter, really is well over six feet tall with big muscles and the face and figure of a Greek god, and from time to time Mark pretends to be Dusty in order that strangers will blab secrets when he is not around but the insignificant-looking real Dusty is. WordOfGod is that Fog was based on AudieMurphy, who was himself of no great size (and just as much of a BigDamnHero).
* FamousNamedForeigner: In ''The Code of Dusty Fog'' by J.T. Edson, three trouble-making Russian members of a rail gang are named Kruschev, Gorbachev and Gorki.
* FastestGunInTheWest: Dusty Fog (except that Doc Leroy is a hairsbreadth faster with a single gun versus Dusty's ambidextrous pair; but Dusty is the one whose name gets mentioned). Mark Counter is a fraction slower than either and Waco a similar distance behind him; none of the four have ever been beaten.
* FieryRedhead: Red Blaze. Also Rusty Willis, but he turns up less often.
* FlayingAlive: The villainess of ''A Town Called Yellowdog'' suffers permanent insanity after a tribe of Kiowa Indians take revenge on her brother for the rape and murder of one of their women. The final chapter is spoilered with the title "She Saw Her Brother Skinned Alive".
* GivingThemTheStrip: In''Troubled Range'', Belle Starr has grabbed Calamity Jane by the waistband of her jeans. Calamity escapes by unbuckling her belt and grabbing the leg of a table, causing Belle to pull her jeans right off her.
* GladToBeAliveSex: While Dusty Fog gets laid less than, say, Mark Counter, he does benefit from this trope when he rescues a complete stranger - previously a man-hating feminist - from being eaten by a grizzly bear in ''A Town Called Yellowdog''.
* GoToAlias: 'Rapido Clint' is Alvin Fog's go to alias when posing as a criminal.
** Dusty Fog often uses 'Edward Marsden', which are his middle names.
* GreatWhiteHunter: Johnny Orchid
** Also Bunduki before he was transported to Zillikian.
* TheGunfighterWannabe: These turn up from time to time, sometimes living to become wiser and less set on being gunfighters, sometimes making the last mistake of their lives against one of the Floating Outfit.
* GunPorn
* GunsAkimbo: Dusty Fog would almost always draw both of his twin Colts at the same time.
* TheGunslinger: All of the Western characters.
* HandCannon: The Ysabel's Kid's .44 Colt Dragoon. After a gunfight, a villain remarked to his surviving comrades that he would rather have been hit by a Sharp's Buffalo Rifle.
* AHandfulForAnEye: The fake Belle Starr does this to a shotgun guard in ''Waco's Badge''.
* HandicappedBadass: Waxahachie Smith is a gunslinger who had his trigger fingers amputated by vengeful foes.
* HistoricalBeautyUpdate: J.T.'s version of Calamity Jane is a stacked blonde who dresses in skintight buckskins. This is at odds with photographs of the historical Calamity Jane, who could charitably described as plain.
** Also applies to Edson's version of Belle Starr.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: J.T. portrays the outlaw and gunfighter John Wesley Hardin as a wrongly accused hero.
* HistoricalPersonPunchline: In ''Cure the Texas Fever'', Waxahachie Smith is aided by a young man calling himself 'Frank Smith'. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that this 'Frank' is an impersonator who has been posing as Frank Smith to allow the real Frank Smith to travel to Texas unhindered. The impersonator's real name? Teddy Roosevelt.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: It is unlikely that General José de Urrea was anywhere near as black as Edson paints him in ''Get Urrea!''. In particular, historians now believe that the Goliad Massacre was perpetrated at the orders of Santa Anna and not Urrea.
* HollywoodSilencer: In ''The Professional Killers'', one of the killers uses a silenced revolver. This is an odd slip-up from Edson who was usually meticulous in his firearms research.
* HornedHairdo: 'Ole Devil' Hardin
* ICallHerVera: In ''Slaughter's Way'', Coonskin has a double-barrelled eight-gauge shotgun he calls 'Betsy Two-Eyes'.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The OutlawTown named Hell.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Waco uses this trick a few times to trip up a killer.
* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In ''The Cow Thieves'', Ella manages to wrestle Calamity Jane's gun away from her and attempts to shoot her with it, only to discover that Calamity had not had time to fit the percussion caps to the nipples.
* JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: Company Z
* KissingCousins: Bunduki and Dawn
* KnifeNut: The Ysabel Kid
* TheLadette: Calamity Jane
* LockedRoomMystery: "Behind Locked and Bolted Door" in ''More J.T.'s Ladies''.
* LostHimInACardGame: In ''Troubled Range'' a friend of Mark Counter's accidentally wins a wife in a poker game. The friend thought the ship's captain he was playing against had been betting his ship when he tossed in the marker with the name written on it.
* LukeIAmYourFather: In ''The Wildcats'', Calamity Jane discovers that [[spoiler:Madam Bulldog]] is actually her mother.
* MagicFeather: Used in "Dusty Fog's Gun" when Waco gives a young deputy a gun and tells him it once belonged to Dusty Fog, giving him the confidence to win an upcoming gunfight.
* MarijuanaIsLSD: Edson was violently opposed to marijuana use and any time it is portrayed in his novels, it is shown in a negative light. However, he also appears to have had no idea of what its effects actually were, and it was portrayed as everything from a date rape drug to driving people into a beserk frenzy like PCP.
* MedicineShow: Doctor Erazamus K. Thornett's Superior Elixir show in ''Apache Rampage''.
* MidBattleTeaBreak: ''Troubled Range'' features an epic CatFight beyween Calamity Jane and Belle Starr. In the middle of it, the two combatants break off, stagger to the bar, down a drink, and then start waling on each other again.
* MissingEpisode: J.T. completed a fifth novel his ''Bunduki'' series titled ''Amazons of Zillikian'' that was never released due to a dispute with the Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs estate. Fans hold out hope that it will one day be released.
* MistakenNationality: Tommy Okasi, who is Japanese, is almost always assumed to be Chinese. {{Justified|Trope}} because Chinese were the only Asians most people in the old west had ever encountered.
* MixedAncestry:
** The Ysabel Kid is half Kentucky Irish, a quarter Comanche, and a quarter French-Creole.
** Annie Singing Bear has a Comanche father and a white mother.
* MurderByMistake: In ''The Professional Killers'', Deputy Tom Cord is killed because he matched the description the hitmen were given of their target (old trenchcoat and hat) and got off the train the target was supposed to be arriving on. It is later discovered that target had changed his mind and not caught that train at all.
* NakedInMink: In ''The Professional Killers'', the police raid the house of a burgular and find his girlfriend wearing a recently stolen mink stole and nothing else.
* TheNapoleon: Horace Rangoon in ''The Rio Hondo Kid''.
* NatureHero: Bunduki and Dawn.
* NewOldWest: The ''Rockabye County'' series.
* ObfuscatingDisability: In ''The Lawmen of Rockabye County'', escaped felon 'Crazy Doc' Christopher wears a prosthetic hand over his still functional right hand.
* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Belle Boyd and Belle Starr.
* OnlyOneName: Waco
* OutlawTown: ''Hell in the Palo Duro'' and ''Go Back to Hell''.
* PantsPositiveSafety: Almost gets Waxachie Smith killed in ''Cure the Texas Fever''. While in Chicago, Smith is unable to carry his revolver in a fast-draw holster the way he normally does, so he sticks it in the back of pants under his jacket. When attacked, his reflexes cause him to reach for the holster he is no longer wearing.
* PlanetaryRomance: The ''Bunduki'' series.
* PocketProtector: Dusty Fog's life is saved in ''The Bad Bunch'' when a bullet from a derringer strikes his belt buckle. The impact is still enough to lay him out in bed for several days.
* ProfessionalGambler: Professional gamblers appear in many of the novels. Frank Derringer is one who is a recurring character.
* QuicksandSucks: In ''The Law of the Gun'', the main bad guy perishes when he attempts to escape the heroes by diving of the trail through the cane brakes along the Rio Grande and plunging into quicksand where he vanishes without trace.
* {{Rancher}}: 'Ole Devil' Hardin, John Slaughter, Charles Goodnight (who is powerful enough to qualify as a CattleBaron)
* RapeAndRevenge: The climax of ''Is-A-Man''.
* RecklessGunUsage: In ''The Return of Rapido Clint and Mr. J.G. Reeder'', a British thug picks up Rapido's Colt automatic. Being unfamiliar with firearms, he pushes the safety catch off thinking that he is putting it on. He then strikes a pose like his favourite cowboy actor and the gun goes off.
* RemittanceMan: Captain Patrick Reeder a.k.a. 'The Remittance Kid'.
* TheRemnant: ''The South Will Rise Again''
* RingsOfDeath: Razor-edged chakrams are the weapon of choice for one of the tribes in ''Bunduki''.
* RupturedAppendix: Doc Leroy, one of the characters in the Floating Outfit series, once saved the life of a cowhand with a burst appendix by operating on him with a Bowie knife[[note]]or so the legend was widely repeated. In ''Doc Leroy, M.D.'' the character explains to a medical professor that this is untrue and he did carry around a ''bona fide'' scalpel and other instruments.[[/note]]
* TheRustler: Edson preferred the term 'cow thief', which he claimed was more historically accurate.
* ScoobyDooHoax: A gang of bootleggers do this to scare people away from their hideout in ''You're a Texas Ranger, Alvin Fog''.
* SergeantRock: Jubal Branch in the ''Company Z'' series.
** And Billy Jack in the ''Civil War'' series.
* SesquipedalianSmith: Waxahachie Smith
* ShamingTheMob: Waco does this in the short story "A Man Called Drango Dune" in ''Arizona Ranger''.
* ShootingGallery: Features prominently in ''The Sixteen-Dollar Shooter'', when Deputy Brad Counter leaves a combat pistol shooting competition and walks straight into an armed showdown with four Mexican terrorists.
* ShownTheirWork: In spades.
* SickbedSlaying: In ''The Remittance Kid'', one of the anarchists sneaks into a hospital disguised as a priest and uses a VorpalPillow to smother a wounded accomplice before he can talk to the police.
* StrawCharacter: Especially in the later novels, any character described as 'liberal' will be a coward, a hypocrite and a homosexual. They will also be [[StrawLoser ugly and not bathe]].
* TenPacesAndTurn: Dusty Fog fights a traditional pistol duel (albeit using Colt revolvers rather than duelling pistols) in ''A Matter of Honour''. His opponent cheats by having a fully loaded revolver (Dusty's has only one loaded chamber) and firing before the full ten count. Dusty still beats him.
* TomeIsWhereTheHeatIs: In ''Two Miles to the Border'', the so-called 'Daughters of the Lord' conceal Colt Cloverleaf Pistols inside the heavy bibles they carry.
* TrojanPrisoner: Alvin Fog and Mark Scrapton do this in order to get access to the prison where 'Handsome Phil' Foote is being held in ''The Justice of Company Z''.
* TheTropeKid: The Ysabel Kid
* TrueCompanions: The Floating Outfit
* UndercoverAsLovers: Dusty Fog and Belle Boyd in ''The South Will Rise Again''.
* UndersideRide: In ''Terror Valley'', Calamity Jane sneaks out of the mission by hiding in a 'possum-belly'; a sheet of rawhide attached to the bottom of a wagon for carrying firewood.
** Belle Starr pulls the same trick in ''Troubled Range''.
* USMarshal: Waco ends his career as a U.S. Marshal. Deputy U.S. Marshal Solomon Wisdom 'Solly' Cole is a supporting character in several books.
* VaporWear: Edson's descriptions of his heroines often mention that it is clear that they are not wearing anything under their clothes. This is usually a sure sign their clothes are going to be shredded in a CatFight.
* VorpalPillow: In ''The Remittance Kid'' one of the anarchists sneaks into a hospital disguised as a priest and uses a pillow to smother a wounded accomplice before he can talk to the police.
* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: In ''Slaughter's Way'', CampCook Coonskin has a pet skunk named 'Mr. Earp', reflecting how most Texas cowhands felt about Kansas lawman Wyatt Earp.
* WhipItGood: Calamity Jane
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: In ''Texas Teamwork'', the Sheriff's Department goes looking for a call girl named Lois Lane. The deputies are sure this is an alias, but the madam assures them it is the name on her social security card.
* TheWildWest
* YouAreInCommandNow: ''You're in Command Now, Mr Fog'' by J.T.Edson tells how, as a 17-year-old first lieutenant, Dusty Fog found himself in command of a company during the AmericanCivilWar.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Gus Saunders is ejected from a plane without a parachute for this reason in ''Blonde Genius''.
* YoungGun: Waco is a hard-eyed youngster of about sixteen when he is first encountered, and already has several notches on his gun-belt, all of them nominally "fair fights" but several, as he later admits, for no good reason at all. He reforms after being pulled out from in front of a cattle stampede.
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[[caption-width-right:300:J.T. Edson and some of his heroines]]
John Thomas "J.T." Edson is an English writer of Westerns.
He was born in 1928 near the border of the county of Derbyshire, England, in a small mining village, Whitwell, and was obsessed with Westerns from an early age. In his 20s and 30s, he spent 12 years in the British Army as a dog trainer. It was during this time that he began writing to alleviate boredom during long periods in barracks.
Upon leaving the army, J.T. won second prize (with ''Trail Boss'') in the Western division of a literary competition run by Brown & Watson Ltd, which led to the publication of 46 novels with them, becoming a major earner for the company. He also wrote a series of short stories (''Dan Hollick, Dog Handler'') for the ''Victor'' boys papers, and wrote the "box captions" for comic strips, which he credited with instilling discipline and the ability to convey maximum information with minimum words.
His writing career forged ahead when he joined Corgi Books in the late 1960s, which gave J.T. exposure through a major publishing house, as well as the opportunity to branch out from the core Westerns into the Rockabye County police procedurals, the science-fiction hero Bunduki and other series.
J.T. Edson wrote 136 books, spread primarily across nine series, although there were several stand-alone novels.
His main series are:
* OLE DEVIL HARDIN SERIES (5 books): The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin, Dusty Fog's uncle, during the Texan War of Independence (1836).
* THE CIVIL WAR SERIES (13 books): The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin and the members of the Floating Outfit during the American Civil War (1861 -1865).
* THE FLOATING OUTFIT SERIES (66 books): The exploits of the Floating Outfit. This group consists of Dusty Fog, Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid. This trio is joined by various others during the 10-year span of the novels (1870–1880) such as Waco, Doc Leroy and Red Blaze.
* THE WACO SERIES (7 books): About the adventures of former Floating Outfit member Waco.
* THE CALAMITY JANE SERIES (12 books): The adventures of Calamity Jane, a friend of the Floating Outfit.
* THE WAXAHACHIE SMITH SERIES (3 books): Smith is an associate of the Floating Outfit and a former Texas Ranger.
* THE COMPANY Z SERIES (6 books): This series outlines the adventures of the grandsons of Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid and Mark Counter, (Alvin Fog, Mark Scrapton and Rance Smith respectively) in this extra-legal company of Texas Rangers.
* THE ROCKABYE COUNTY SERIES (11 books): This series is about the Rockabye County Sherrif's department, of whom Brad Counter, Mark Counter's great-grandson, is a member.
* THE BUNDUKI SERIES (4 books): A PlanetaryRomance series about Mark Counter's great-grandson James Allenvale 'Bunduki' Gunn, who is abducted by aliens known as 'Suppliers' to act as a game warden for the planet Zillikian.
Edson retired from writing in the 1990s due to failing health.
!!J.T. Edson's novels provide examples of:
* AbnormalAmmo: The short story "Some Knowledge of the Knife" was a murder mystery in which the assassination weapon was an oddly-balanced knife fired from a large-bore "wall gun".
* AcademyOfEvil: Bekinsop's Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk in ''Blonde Genius''.
* TheAce: Amanda 'The School Swot' Tweedle
* ActionGirl: Calamity Jane, Dawn Drummond-Clayton, Belle Boyd... Pretty much all of J.T.'s heroines qualify. Even Dusty's gently-bred cousin Betty Hardin can beat Dusty at judo if he gets careless and fight several times her own weight in outlaws when she's not dominating them by sheer force of will (short story "The Quartet").
* AmazonBrigade: ''The Bad Bunch''
* AnimalAssassin: In ''Cure the Texas Fever'', one of the attempts to kill Waxahachie Smith involves unleashing an enraged longhorn steer to run him down.
* AsTheGoodBookSays: Deputy Marshal Solomon Wisdom 'Solly' Cole is fond of quoting Bible verses. Some of them are made up out of the whole cloth, with Solly relying on the fact that reprobates he is lecturing will not have the biblical knowledge necessary to contradict him.
* AuthorAppeal: J.T.'s heroines are always well-endowed, even in historical periods when this was not considered the ideal of female beauty.
* TheAmericanCivilWar: The setting for [[CaptainObvious The Civil War Series]].
* ArcherArchetype: Dawn Drummond-Clayton from the ''Bunduki'' novels. Bunduki himself is also an expert with the bow, but is more likely to get into melee combat than Dawn, and Dawn is definitely the more analytical of the two.
* BadHabits: Villains disguising themselves as clergymen or nuns is a common tactic in Edson's novels. Examples occur in ''The Remittance Kid'', ''The Sheriff of Rockabye County'' and ''Diamonds, Emeralds, Cards and Colts''.
* {{Bandito}}
* BangingForHelp: Doc Leroy, temporarily working as a lawman, was coshed and immobilised to prevent his interfering with a planned robbery. (The crooks didn't kill him as they didn't want to spend the rest of their likely-to-be-short lives running away from the Floating Outfit.) He was reduced to banging on the floor of the hotel room he was shut up in, hoping to attract attention.
* BecauseImJonesy: In ''The Bad Bunch'', Belle Boyd poses as Belle Starr in order to infiltrate an all-female outlaw gang. Unfortunately for her, the real Belle Starr had the same idea.
* BreastAttack: A frequent event during the lovingly described {{Cat Fight}}s.
* {{Bulungi}}: Ambagazali from the Bunduki short stories.
* ButLiquorIsQuicker: In one of the ''Alvin Fog'' novels, one of the villains Company Z take vengeance on is a rapist who plied a teenage girl with alcohol-laced lemonade.
* CampingACrapper: Assassins try to get to the drop on Waxahachie Smith this way in ''Cure the Texas Fever''. Wax turns the tables on them by leaving behind his boots and pants, which is all of him they can see, and sneaking up behind them
* CatFight: A frequent occurrence and always lovingly described.
* CattleBaron: Charles Goodnight is a heroic example. John Chisum is a more typical CorruptHick type.
* CavalryOfficer: The ''Ole Devil Hardin'' series and the ''Civil War'' series focus on the careers of 'Ole Devil' Hardin and his nephew Dusty Fog as cavalry officers in wars a generation apart (the Texan War of Independence and the AmericanCivilWar).
* CigarChomper: John Slaughter
* CigarFuseLighting: Done by bad guy Santone in ''Rio Guns''.
* ClassyCatBurglar: Libby Craddock from ''Texas Kidnappers'', although her exact level of classiness depends upon her mood.
* CombatMedic: 'Doc' Leroy.
* ConvenientMisfire: J.T. Edson disliked it when guns jammed or misfired for no reason in movies, so whenever it happened in his novels he would give a detailed explanation of what caused the gun to jam (usually poor maintenance on the bad guy's part). That said, it still happened several times when it was convenient for his heroes. The short story "Jubal Branch's Lucky B.A.R." was one example.
* CounterEarth: Zillikan, the setting for the ''Bunduki'' series.
* CounterfeitCash: ''The Rebel Spy'', ''Two Miles to the Border''
* CoversAlwaysLie: The covers of many J.T. Edson novels feature generic western scenes that bear no real connection to the contents of the book. And some are just flat out wrong. The Corgi edition of ''The Remittance Kid'' shows a gunfight on the deserted main street of tiny frontier town. The novel takes place entirely in Chicago.
* CripplingTheCompetition: Waxahachie Smith had his trigger fingers removed by vengeful foes.
* DirectLineToTheAuthor
* DivorcedInstallment: ''Blonde Genius'' was originally written as a plot for a ''StTrinians'' movie.
* DressingAsTheEnemy: A common tactic of Company C in the ''Civil War'' series. Sometimes it was not even necessary to dress in enemy uniforms as the only difference between the Federal and Confederate uniforms was the colour, so in near darkness it was quite easy to pass yourself off as a member of the opposing side.
* TheEeyore: Billy Jack
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Horace Rangoon, villain of ''The Rio Hondo Kid'', has a huge chip on his shoulder on account of his first name -- all the more so because his father insisted on shaming him with such a name to disgrace him for being short.
** Calamity Jane is able to keep her freight-driver boss Dobe Killem sweet by threatening to reveal that his given name is Cecil.
* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: Dusty Fog who, though strongly built, is only about five feet five inches tall and continually overlooked by strangers who know him only by reputation. Usefully, one of his associates, Mark Counter, really is well over six feet tall with big muscles and the face and figure of a Greek god, and from time to time Mark pretends to be Dusty in order that strangers will blab secrets when he is not around but the insignificant-looking real Dusty is. WordOfGod is that Fog was based on AudieMurphy, who was himself of no great size (and just as much of a BigDamnHero).
* FamousNamedForeigner: In ''The Code of Dusty Fog'' by J.T. Edson, three trouble-making Russian members of a rail gang are named Kruschev, Gorbachev and Gorki.
* FastestGunInTheWest: Dusty Fog (except that Doc Leroy is a hairsbreadth faster with a single gun versus Dusty's ambidextrous pair; but Dusty is the one whose name gets mentioned). Mark Counter is a fraction slower than either and Waco a similar distance behind him; none of the four have ever been beaten.
* FieryRedhead: Red Blaze. Also Rusty Willis, but he turns up less often.
* FlayingAlive: The villainess of ''A Town Called Yellowdog'' suffers permanent insanity after a tribe of Kiowa Indians take revenge on her brother for the rape and murder of one of their women. The final chapter is spoilered with the title "She Saw Her Brother Skinned Alive".
* GivingThemTheStrip: In''Troubled Range'', Belle Starr has grabbed Calamity Jane by the waistband of her jeans. Calamity escapes by unbuckling her belt and grabbing the leg of a table, causing Belle to pull her jeans right off her.
* GladToBeAliveSex: While Dusty Fog gets laid less than, say, Mark Counter, he does benefit from this trope when he rescues a complete stranger - previously a man-hating feminist - from being eaten by a grizzly bear in ''A Town Called Yellowdog''.
* GoToAlias: 'Rapido Clint' is Alvin Fog's go to alias when posing as a criminal.
** Dusty Fog often uses 'Edward Marsden', which are his middle names.
* GreatWhiteHunter: Johnny Orchid
** Also Bunduki before he was transported to Zillikian.
* TheGunfighterWannabe: These turn up from time to time, sometimes living to become wiser and less set on being gunfighters, sometimes making the last mistake of their lives against one of the Floating Outfit.
* GunPorn
* GunsAkimbo: Dusty Fog would almost always draw both of his twin Colts at the same time.
* TheGunslinger: All of the Western characters.
* HandCannon: The Ysabel's Kid's .44 Colt Dragoon. After a gunfight, a villain remarked to his surviving comrades that he would rather have been hit by a Sharp's Buffalo Rifle.
* AHandfulForAnEye: The fake Belle Starr does this to a shotgun guard in ''Waco's Badge''.
* HandicappedBadass: Waxahachie Smith is a gunslinger who had his trigger fingers amputated by vengeful foes.
* HistoricalBeautyUpdate: J.T.'s version of Calamity Jane is a stacked blonde who dresses in skintight buckskins. This is at odds with photographs of the historical Calamity Jane, who could charitably described as plain.
** Also applies to Edson's version of Belle Starr.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter
* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: J.T. portrays the outlaw and gunfighter John Wesley Hardin as a wrongly accused hero.
* HistoricalPersonPunchline: In ''Cure the Texas Fever'', Waxahachie Smith is aided by a young man calling himself 'Frank Smith'. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that this 'Frank' is an impersonator who has been posing as Frank Smith to allow the real Frank Smith to travel to Texas unhindered. The impersonator's real name? Teddy Roosevelt.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: It is unlikely that General José de Urrea was anywhere near as black as Edson paints him in ''Get Urrea!''. In particular, historians now believe that the Goliad Massacre was perpetrated at the orders of Santa Anna and not Urrea.
* HollywoodSilencer: In ''The Professional Killers'', one of the killers uses a silenced revolver. This is an odd slip-up from Edson who was usually meticulous in his firearms research.
* HornedHairdo: 'Ole Devil' Hardin
* ICallHerVera: In ''Slaughter's Way'', Coonskin has a double-barrelled eight-gauge shotgun he calls 'Betsy Two-Eyes'.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The OutlawTown named Hell.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Waco uses this trick a few times to trip up a killer.
* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In ''The Cow Thieves'', Ella manages to wrestle Calamity Jane's gun away from her and attempts to shoot her with it, only to discover that Calamity had not had time to fit the percussion caps to the nipples.
* JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: Company Z
* KissingCousins: Bunduki and Dawn
* KnifeNut: The Ysabel Kid
* TheLadette: Calamity Jane
* LockedRoomMystery: "Behind Locked and Bolted Door" in ''More J.T.'s Ladies''.
* LostHimInACardGame: In ''Troubled Range'' a friend of Mark Counter's accidentally wins a wife in a poker game. The friend thought the ship's captain he was playing against had been betting his ship when he tossed in the marker with the name written on it.
* LukeIAmYourFather: In ''The Wildcats'', Calamity Jane discovers that [[spoiler:Madam Bulldog]] is actually her mother.
* MagicFeather: Used in "Dusty Fog's Gun" when Waco gives a young deputy a gun and tells him it once belonged to Dusty Fog, giving him the confidence to win an upcoming gunfight.
* MarijuanaIsLSD: Edson was violently opposed to marijuana use and any time it is portrayed in his novels, it is shown in a negative light. However, he also appears to have had no idea of what its effects actually were, and it was portrayed as everything from a date rape drug to driving people into a beserk frenzy like PCP.
* MedicineShow: Doctor Erazamus K. Thornett's Superior Elixir show in ''Apache Rampage''.
* MidBattleTeaBreak: ''Troubled Range'' features an epic CatFight beyween Calamity Jane and Belle Starr. In the middle of it, the two combatants break off, stagger to the bar, down a drink, and then start waling on each other again.
* MissingEpisode: J.T. completed a fifth novel his ''Bunduki'' series titled ''Amazons of Zillikian'' that was never released due to a dispute with the Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs estate. Fans hold out hope that it will one day be released.
* MistakenNationality: Tommy Okasi, who is Japanese, is almost always assumed to be Chinese. {{Justified|Trope}} because Chinese were the only Asians most people in the old west had ever encountered.
* MixedAncestry:
** The Ysabel Kid is half Kentucky Irish, a quarter Comanche, and a quarter French-Creole.
** Annie Singing Bear has a Comanche father and a white mother.
* MurderByMistake: In ''The Professional Killers'', Deputy Tom Cord is killed because he matched the description the hitmen were given of their target (old trenchcoat and hat) and got off the train the target was supposed to be arriving on. It is later discovered that target had changed his mind and not caught that train at all.
* NakedInMink: In ''The Professional Killers'', the police raid the house of a burgular and find his girlfriend wearing a recently stolen mink stole and nothing else.
* TheNapoleon: Horace Rangoon in ''The Rio Hondo Kid''.
* NatureHero: Bunduki and Dawn.
* NewOldWest: The ''Rockabye County'' series.
* ObfuscatingDisability: In ''The Lawmen of Rockabye County'', escaped felon 'Crazy Doc' Christopher wears a prosthetic hand over his still functional right hand.
* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Belle Boyd and Belle Starr.
* OnlyOneName: Waco
* OutlawTown: ''Hell in the Palo Duro'' and ''Go Back to Hell''.
* PantsPositiveSafety: Almost gets Waxachie Smith killed in ''Cure the Texas Fever''. While in Chicago, Smith is unable to carry his revolver in a fast-draw holster the way he normally does, so he sticks it in the back of pants under his jacket. When attacked, his reflexes cause him to reach for the holster he is no longer wearing.
* PlanetaryRomance: The ''Bunduki'' series.
* PocketProtector: Dusty Fog's life is saved in ''The Bad Bunch'' when a bullet from a derringer strikes his belt buckle. The impact is still enough to lay him out in bed for several days.
* ProfessionalGambler: Professional gamblers appear in many of the novels. Frank Derringer is one who is a recurring character.
* QuicksandSucks: In ''The Law of the Gun'', the main bad guy perishes when he attempts to escape the heroes by diving of the trail through the cane brakes along the Rio Grande and plunging into quicksand where he vanishes without trace.
* {{Rancher}}: 'Ole Devil' Hardin, John Slaughter, Charles Goodnight (who is powerful enough to qualify as a CattleBaron)
* RapeAndRevenge: The climax of ''Is-A-Man''.
* RecklessGunUsage: In ''The Return of Rapido Clint and Mr. J.G. Reeder'', a British thug picks up Rapido's Colt automatic. Being unfamiliar with firearms, he pushes the safety catch off thinking that he is putting it on. He then strikes a pose like his favourite cowboy actor and the gun goes off.
* RemittanceMan: Captain Patrick Reeder a.k.a. 'The Remittance Kid'.
* TheRemnant: ''The South Will Rise Again''
* RingsOfDeath: Razor-edged chakrams are the weapon of choice for one of the tribes in ''Bunduki''.
* RupturedAppendix: Doc Leroy, one of the characters in the Floating Outfit series, once saved the life of a cowhand with a burst appendix by operating on him with a Bowie knife[[note]]or so the legend was widely repeated. In ''Doc Leroy, M.D.'' the character explains to a medical professor that this is untrue and he did carry around a ''bona fide'' scalpel and other instruments.[[/note]]
* TheRustler: Edson preferred the term 'cow thief', which he claimed was more historically accurate.
* ScoobyDooHoax: A gang of bootleggers do this to scare people away from their hideout in ''You're a Texas Ranger, Alvin Fog''.
* SergeantRock: Jubal Branch in the ''Company Z'' series.
** And Billy Jack in the ''Civil War'' series.
* SesquipedalianSmith: Waxahachie Smith
* ShamingTheMob: Waco does this in the short story "A Man Called Drango Dune" in ''Arizona Ranger''.
* ShootingGallery: Features prominently in ''The Sixteen-Dollar Shooter'', when Deputy Brad Counter leaves a combat pistol shooting competition and walks straight into an armed showdown with four Mexican terrorists.
* ShownTheirWork: In spades.
* SickbedSlaying: In ''The Remittance Kid'', one of the anarchists sneaks into a hospital disguised as a priest and uses a VorpalPillow to smother a wounded accomplice before he can talk to the police.
* StrawCharacter: Especially in the later novels, any character described as 'liberal' will be a coward, a hypocrite and a homosexual. They will also be [[StrawLoser ugly and not bathe]].
* TenPacesAndTurn: Dusty Fog fights a traditional pistol duel (albeit using Colt revolvers rather than duelling pistols) in ''A Matter of Honour''. His opponent cheats by having a fully loaded revolver (Dusty's has only one loaded chamber) and firing before the full ten count. Dusty still beats him.
* TomeIsWhereTheHeatIs: In ''Two Miles to the Border'', the so-called 'Daughters of the Lord' conceal Colt Cloverleaf Pistols inside the heavy bibles they carry.
* TrojanPrisoner: Alvin Fog and Mark Scrapton do this in order to get access to the prison where 'Handsome Phil' Foote is being held in ''The Justice of Company Z''.
* TheTropeKid: The Ysabel Kid
* TrueCompanions: The Floating Outfit
* UndercoverAsLovers: Dusty Fog and Belle Boyd in ''The South Will Rise Again''.
* UndersideRide: In ''Terror Valley'', Calamity Jane sneaks out of the mission by hiding in a 'possum-belly'; a sheet of rawhide attached to the bottom of a wagon for carrying firewood.
** Belle Starr pulls the same trick in ''Troubled Range''.
* USMarshal: Waco ends his career as a U.S. Marshal. Deputy U.S. Marshal Solomon Wisdom 'Solly' Cole is a supporting character in several books.
* VaporWear: Edson's descriptions of his heroines often mention that it is clear that they are not wearing anything under their clothes. This is usually a sure sign their clothes are going to be shredded in a CatFight.
* VorpalPillow: In ''The Remittance Kid'' one of the anarchists sneaks into a hospital disguised as a priest and uses a pillow to smother a wounded accomplice before he can talk to the police.
* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: In ''Slaughter's Way'', CampCook Coonskin has a pet skunk named 'Mr. Earp', reflecting how most Texas cowhands felt about Kansas lawman Wyatt Earp.
* WhipItGood: Calamity Jane
* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: In ''Texas Teamwork'', the Sheriff's Department goes looking for a call girl named Lois Lane. The deputies are sure this is an alias, but the madam assures them it is the name on her social security card.
* TheWildWest
* YouAreInCommandNow: ''You're in Command Now, Mr Fog'' by J.T.Edson tells how, as a 17-year-old first lieutenant, Dusty Fog found himself in command of a company during the AmericanCivilWar.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Gus Saunders is ejected from a plane without a parachute for this reason in ''Blonde Genius''.
* YoungGun: Waco is a hard-eyed youngster of about sixteen when he is first encountered, and already has several notches on his gun-belt, all of them nominally "fair fights" but several, as he later admits, for no good reason at all. He reforms after being pulled out from in front of a cattle stampede.
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