Line #153 Creator/JTEdson


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/edson_8322.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:J.T. Edson and some of his heroines]]
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4	John Thomas Edson (17 February 1928 – 17 July 2014) was an English writer of Westerns.
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6	He was born 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.
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8	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.
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10	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.
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12	J.T. Edson wrote 136 books, spread primarily across nine series, although there were several stand-alone novels.
13
14	His main series are:
15	* OLE DEVIL HARDIN SERIES (5 books): The adventures of Ole Devil Hardin, Dusty Fog's uncle, during the Texan War of Independence (1836).
16	* 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).
17	* 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.
18	* THE WACO SERIES (7 books): About the adventures of former Floating Outfit member Waco.
19	* THE CALAMITY JANE SERIES (12 books): The adventures of Calamity Jane, a friend of the Floating Outfit.
20	* THE WAXAHACHIE SMITH SERIES (3 books): Smith is an associate of the Floating Outfit and a former Texas Ranger.
21	* 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.
22	* 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.
23	* THE BUNDUKI SERIES (5 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.
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25	Edson retired from writing in the 1990s due to failing health, and died in 2014.
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27	----
28	!!J.T. Edson's novels provide examples of:
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30	* 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".
31	* AcademyOfEvil: Bekinsop's Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk in ''Blonde Genius''.
32	* TheAce: Amanda 'The School Swot' Tweedle
33	* 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").
34	* AmazonBrigade: ''The Bad Bunch''
35	* AnimalAssassin: In ''Cure the Texas Fever'', one of the attempts to kill Waxahachie Smith involves unleashing an enraged longhorn steer to run him down.
36	* AnimalStampede: A cattle stampede features prominently in JT's first-published novel ''Trail Boss''. As one of the staple dangers of trail life, they also occur in several of his later books that feature {{Cattle Drive}}s
37	* 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.
38	* AuthorAppeal: J.T.'s heroines are always well-endowed, even in historical periods when this was not considered the ideal of female beauty.
39	* 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''.
40	* {{Bandito}}: Most Mexican villains in the stories are venal in the extreme, although the antagonist in "Hernandez's Little Toy" (one of the episodes in ''Slaughter's Way'') was a ''hidalgo'' fallen on hard times and conducted himself like a gentleman when the time came to fight Slaughter in an honourable duel. In contrast, the Ysabel Kid knows some Mexicans who are guilty of nothing worse than smuggling, and several who are gentlemen in their own right and quite as praiseworthy as anyone from north of the border.
41	* 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.
42	* BeardnessProtectionProgram: Dusty Fog and Waco grow beards when they go undercover as as outlaws on the run to infiltrate the OutlawTown of Hell.
43	* {{Blackface}}: In ''The Return of Rapido Clint and Mr J.G.Reeder'', the killer turns out to be a blackface vaudeville comedian who travels everywhere in full makeup to cover terrible scarring he received in a gas attack in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. However, when Reeder and Fog remove the man's makeup, they discover it is actually the comedian's Negro valet. He had [[KillAndReplace killed his employer several years earlier and adopted his identity]] to work as a ProfessionalKiller. The comedian's fame allowed him to tour anywhere in the world, and he could disappear just by removing the makeup, as no one would suspect that the person under the blackface was actually black.
44	* 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.
45	* BreastAttack: A frequent event during the lovingly described {{Cat Fight}}s.
46	* BulletDancing: Wannabe hardcase Bill Wendee does this to the local schoolteacher in the short story "Bill Wendee Likes an Edge" in ''Sagebrush Sleuth''.
47	** The schoolteacher stands his ground, but Wendee doesn't when the tables are turned on him moments later by Waco.
48	* {{Bulungi}}: Ambagazali from the Bunduki short stories.
49	* ButLiquorIsQuicker: In ''The Justice of Company Z'', one of the villains Company Z take vengeance on is a rapist who plied a teenage girl with alcohol-laced lemonade.
50	* 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.
51	** Similarly the Ysabel Kid in ''Trigger Fast''. The would-be murderer found out only after he had shot himself out that a man raised and trained by Comanches can hide behind an improbably small bush.
52	* 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 Trumpeter directly.
53	* CatFight: A frequent occurrence and always lovingly described.
54	* CattleBaron: Charles Goodnight is a heroic example. John Chisum is a more typical SmallTownTyrant type.
55	* CattleDrive: Cattle drive feature prominently in several novels, including Edson's first novel ''Trail Boss''.
56	* 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 UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar).
57	* 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.
58	* ChekhovsGun: In ''Return to Backsight'', Dusty teaches an inexperienced gun-handler the danger of accidentally belly-shooting yourself if you don't follow the correct loading sequence for a Remington Double Derringer. Guess what the lady villain does in the final chapter?
59	* CigarChomper: John Slaughter
60	* CigarFuseLighting: Done by bad guy Santone in ''Rio Guns''.
61	* ClassyCatBurglar: Libby Craddock from ''Texas Kidnappers'', although her exact level of classiness depends upon her mood.
62	* CombatMedic: 'Doc' Leroy.
63	* ConfrontingYourImposter: 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.
64	* 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.
65	* CounterEarth: Zillikan, the setting for the ''Bunduki'' series.
66	* CounterfeitCash: ''The Rebel Spy'', ''Two Miles to the Border''
67	* 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.
68	** Averted with the cover of the Corgi edition of ''Slip Gun'', which does show a gunfighter whose index finger is missing its top joint.
69	* CripplingCastration: At the end of ''Is-A-Man'', Annie Singing Bear castrates the {{Bandito}} who [[RapeAndRevenge raped her best friend]]. She does this like castrating a bull; cutting open his scrotum, removing his testicles and sewing him back up.
70	* CripplingTheCompetition: Waxahachie Smith had his trigger fingers removed by vengeful foes.
71	* DawnOfTheWildWest: The ''Ole Devil'' novels are set during the Texas War of Independence (1835-37).
72	* DeadMansHand: "Deadwood August 2nd 1876" in ''J.T.'s Hundredth'' is a fictionalised account of the killing of Wild Bill Hickok. In it, Hickok has just discarded his fifth card and is reaching for another when he is shot.
73	* DeadPersonImpersonation: In ''The Rushers'', Dusty Fog is forced to temporarily take on the identity of cavalry officer who was killed by marauding Indians in order to keep his green troops from panicking and breaking.
74	* DeathFlight: In ''Blonde Genius'', Gus Saunders is ejected from a plane without a parachute while over the English Channel in a case of YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness.
75	* DevilishHairHorns: 'Ole Devil' Hardin
76	* DirectLineToTheAuthor
77	* DivorcedInstallment: ''Blonde Genius'' was originally written as a plot for a ''Film/StTrinians'' movie.
78	* 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.
79	* TheEeyore: Billy Jack.
80	* 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.
81	** Calamity Jane is able to keep her freight-driver boss Dobe Killem sweet by threatening to reveal that his given name is Cecil.
82	* 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 Creator/AudieMurphy, who was himself of no great size (and just as much of a BigDamnHero).
83	* 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.
84	* 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, except that Dusty outdrew Waco on their first meeting.
85	* FieryRedhead: Red Blaze. Also Rusty Willis, but he turns up less often.
86	* 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"]].
87	* 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.''.
88	* 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.
89	* 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''.
90	* GoToAlias: 'Rapido Clint' is Alvin Fog's go to alias when posing as a criminal.
91	** Dusty Fog often uses 'Edward Marsden', which are his middle names.
92	* GreatWhiteHunter: Johnny Orchid
93	** Also Bunduki before he was transported to Zillikian.
94	* GroinAttack: Quite common in a fist-fight especially if the odds are unfair, and almost guaranteed if one of the combatants is a woman. Rarely woman-on-woman (happens in ''A Horse Called Mogollon'').
95	* 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.
96	* GunPorn
97	* GunsAkimbo: Dusty Fog would almost always draw both of his twin Colts at the same time.
98	* TheGunslinger: All of the Western characters.
99	* 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.
100	* AHandfulForAnEye:
101	** The fake Belle Starr does this to a shotgun guard in ''Waco's Badge''.
102	** 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''.
103	* HandicappedBadass: Waxahachie Smith is a gunslinger who had his trigger fingers amputated by vengeful foes.
104	* 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.
105	** Also applies to Edson's version of Belle Starr.
106	* HistoricalCharactersFictionalRelative: Historical gunslinger and outlaw [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Hardin John Wesley Hardin]] is a member of Edson's extended Hardin, Fog & Blaze clan, and therefore related to many of Edson's heroes. In particular, Hardin and Dusty Fog address each other as 'cousin'.
107	* HistoricalDomainCharacter
108	* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: J.T. portrays the outlaw and gunfighter John Wesley Hardin as a wrongly accused hero.
109	** Similarly, in the "Statute of Limitations" episode in ''Sagebrush Sleuth'', Curly Bill Brocius helps to maintain order in a typhoid outbreak in a mining town. Other famous outlaws are also sometimes depicted as victims of circumstances, although generally criminals are painted as bad men who simply prefer crime to honest work.
110	* 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.
111	* 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.
112	* 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.
113	* ICallHerVera: In ''Slaughter's Way'', Coonskin has a double-barrelled eight-gauge shotgun he calls 'Betsy Two-Eyes'.
114	* IconicItem:
115	** The Ysabel Kid's 'One in One Thousand' Winchester '73.
116	** Calamity Jane's bullwhip and cavalry kepi.
117	** Red Blaze's garish rainbow silk neckerchief.
118	* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: The OutlawTown named Hell.
119	* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Waco uses this trick a few times to trip up a killer.
120	* InflationaryDialogue: In ''Wedge Goes To Arizona'', Silent's account of saving the calf grows (as cowboy tales are wont to do) from the one black bear it actually was to five grizzlies, three cougars, twelve black bears and a jaguar.
121	* 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.
122	* JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: Company Z
123	* KarmicDeath: Only prompt medical attention could have saved the lady villain in ''Return to Backsight''... but Doc Leroy, the only doctor for many miles, was desperately trying to save the life of Waco, whom her gang had just shot. By the time he was done, it was much too late.
124	* KissingCousins: Bunduki and Dawn
125	* TheLadette: Calamity Jane
126	* LockedRoomMystery: "Behind Locked and Bolted Door" in ''More J.T.'s Ladies''.
127	* 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.
128	* LukeIAmYourFather: In ''The Wildcats'', Calamity Jane discovers that [[spoiler:Madam Bulldog]] is actually her mother.
129	* 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.
130	* 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 berserk frenzy like PCP.
131	* MasterSwordsman: Dusty Fog is also an adept with either sabre or rapier, and is more than willing to meet blade-to-blade an opponent who is a good fencer but poor gunfighter. In ''The Peacemakers'', an enemy gambles on being able to draw his sword (in the guise of surrendering) faster than Dusty can draw his gun; he has time before dying to apologise for his sneak attack and regrets that they could not have met in a sword fight since "that would not have been fair to you", not knowing that Dusty would have gladly accommodated him and in all likelihood still won.
132	* MedicineShow: Doctor Erazamus K. Thornett's Superior Elixir show in ''Apache Rampage''.
133	** Coonskin poses as a quack doctor in ''Slaughter's Way'' in order to get into a bandit camp.
134	* 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.
135	* MissingEpisode: J.T. completed a fifth novel his ''Bunduki'' series titled ''Amazons of Zillikian'' that which was not released, Edson died in 2014 and the work was released posthumously in 2023 due to a dispute with the Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs estate. In November 2023, the book was published in [[https://www.amazon.com.br/Amazons-Zillikian-Unfinished-Bunduki-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0CKTPN9YT e-book format]] by Piccadilly Publishing.
136	* 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.
137	* 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.
138	* NakedInMink: In ''The Professional Killers'', the police raid the house of a burglar and find his girlfriend wearing a recently stolen mink stole and nothing else.
139	* TheNapoleon: Horace Rangoon in ''The Rio Hondo Kid''.
140	* NatureHero: Bunduki and Dawn.
141	* NewOldWest: The ''Rockabye County'' series.
142	* ObfuscatingDisability: In ''The Lawmen of Rockabye County'', escaped felon 'Crazy Doc' Christopher wears a prosthetic hand over his still functional right hand.
143	* ObfuscatingStupidity: In the ''Company Z'' novels, Sergeant Jubal Branch plays the part of an ignorant hick, deliberately mispronouncing words, in order to make criminals underestimate him.
144	* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Belle Boyd and Belle Starr.
145	* OnlyOneName: Waco
146	* OutlawTown: ''Hell in the Palo Duro'' and ''Go Back to Hell'' are both set in an outlaw town named Hell, hidden deep in Palo Duro Canyon: a canyon system of the Caprock Escarpment located in the Texas Panhandle, and the second largest canyon system in the US.
147	* 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 his pants under his jacket. When attacked, his reflexes cause him to reach for the holster he is no longer wearing.
148	* PlanetaryRomance: The ''Bunduki'' series.
149	* 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.
150	* ProfessionalGambler: Professional gamblers appear in many of the novels. Frank Derringer is one who is a recurring character.
151	* 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.
152	* QuicksandSucks: In ''The Law of the Gun'', the main bad guy perishes when he attempts to escape the heroes by diving off the trail through the cane brakes along the Rio Grande and plunging into quicksand where he vanishes without trace.
153	* {{Rancher}}: 'Ole Devil' Hardin, John Slaughter, Charles Goodnight (who is powerful enough to qualify as a CattleBaron)
154	* RapeAndRevenge: The climax of ''Is-A-Man''.
155	* RealJokeName: In ''Texas Teamwork'', the deputies encounter a HighClassCallGirl called Lois Lane. They are certain this is an assumed name, but the madam assures them this is the name on her social security card.
156	* RealNameAsAnAlias: Dusty Fog frequently uses his middle names Edward Marsden as an alias.
157	* 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.
158	* RemittanceMan: Captain Patrick Reeder a.k.a. 'The Remittance Kid'.
159	* TheRemnant: The linked novels ''To Arms! To Arms in Dixie!'' and ''The South Will Rise Again'' feature US secret agent Belle Boyd encountering a conspiracy by the Brotherhood for Southern Freedom--a sinister band of renegades--to restore the South to its prewar glory.
160	* RequestForPrivacy: In ''Waco's Debt'', Carl Brarsand, sinister saloon owner, tries to get newly arrived Mary Anne Catlan alone to talk to her. Since she knows perfectly well that he's going to try to intimidate her into selling the ranch she inherited, [[SubvertedTrope she refuses to let her friends leave]].
161	* {{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.
162	* RingsOfDeath: Razor-edged chakrams are the weapon of choice for one of the tribes in ''Bunduki''.
163	* 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]]
164	* TheRustler: Edson preferred the term 'cow thief', which he claimed was more historically accurate.
165	* SamuraiCowboy: In the ''Ole Devil Hardin'' series, Hardin's companion Tommy Okasi is an exiled samurail who fights with typical samurai weapons such as sword and bow, while Hardin fights with pistol, rifle and Bowie knife.
166	* {{Schoolmarm}}: In ''The Master of Triggernometry'', a local RobberBaron is constantly harassing schoolmasters and driving them out of a small town so he will an uneducated workforce for his factories. Dusty Fog goes undercover as the new schoolmaster to get to the bottom of the problem, with his cousin Betty Hardin posing as his schoolmarm wife. The town is quite pleased to be getting two teachers for their money.
167	* ScoobyDooHoax: A gang of bootleggers do this to scare people away from their hideout in ''You're a Texas Ranger, Alvin Fog''.
168	* SergeantRock: Jubal Branch in the ''Company Z'' series.
169	** And Billy Jack in the ''Civil War'' series.
170	* SesquipedalianSmith: Waxahachie Smith
171	* ShamingTheMob: Waco does this in the short story "A Man Called Drango Dune" in ''Arizona Ranger''.
172	* 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.
173	* 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''.
174	* ShoutOut: Edson's books are loaded with them. An incomplete list can be found [[http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Articles2.htm#Edson here]].
175	* ShownTheirWork: In spades. Including but by no means restricted to the many details concerning Comanche life and society mentioned in ''Comanche'' and ''Sidewinder''.
176	** Which makes the occasional lapse from grace all the more surprising. While showing a good knowledge of assorted gambling games of the time, Edson perpetrates the odd blunder concerning probability theory - such as when an expert gambler "knows" that the odds against drawing a named card from a standard deck "runs into thousands to one".
177	** Similarly, the Ysabel Kid is treated to dog stew on a visit to his "godmother" Raccoon Talker. While many Native Americans did relish dog, Comanche mostly despised it.
178	** He clearly made use of his dog-training background in ''Hound Dog Man'', which briefly features a USMarshal Waco grown to middle age but centres on Scobie Dale, a man who uses a whole variety of dogs to hunt dangerous predators such as stock-killing cougars and man-eating bears.
179	* 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.
180	* 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]].
181	* 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.
182	* ThereAreNoRules: In ''Wedge Goes to Arizona'', Peaceful is challenged to a knife fight. He asks what the rules are, which confuses his opponent. When he says there are no rules, Peaceful immediately [[GroinAttack kicks him the groin]], following it up with a kick to the jaw as he falls.
183	** Would also qualify as a ShoutOut to 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'.
184	* TomeIsWhereTheHeatIs: In ''Two Miles to the Border'', the so-called 'Daughters of the Lord' conceal Colt Cloverleaf Pistols inside the heavy bibles they carry.
185	* TrickedIntoAnotherJurisdiction: In "A Chore for Company Z" in ''J.T.'s Hundredth'', Company Z is called when a Mexican lawman is killed investigating a rustling operation on Texas/Mexico border. Identifying the killer as a Texan rancher, they cannot arrest him as he cannot be extradited. On the pretext of taking him to a doctor for treatment for his gunshot wound, they place him in the back of a truck with an AngryGuardDog. The dog snarls at him every time he moves, even after the truck stops. Someone eventually calls the dog off and, when the rancher works up his courage to stick his head outside the truck, he finds he is in a Mexican village just over the border with the ''Federales'' waiting for him.
186	* 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''.
187	* TheTropeKid: The Ysabel Kid
188	* TrueCompanions: The Floating Outfit
189	* {{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.
190	* UndercoverAsLovers: Dusty Fog and Belle Boyd in ''The South Will Rise Again''.
191	* 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.
192	** Belle Starr pulls the same trick in ''Troubled Range''.
193	* 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 a senior sheriff's deputy.
194	* 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.
195	* 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.
196	* 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.
197	* 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.
198	* 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.
199	* TheWildWest
200	* 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 UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar.
201	* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Gus Saunders is ejected from a plane without a parachute for this reason in ''Blonde Genius''.
202	* 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.
203

Context Creator / JTEdson