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You're In Command Now, Mr Fog

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The brainchild of Amazon Kindle Number One bestselling western writers Mike Stotter and Ben Bridges, PICCADILLY PUBLISHING is dedicated to reissuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!

YOU'RE IN COMMAND NOW, MR. FOG

The Yankee sharpshooter turned out to be a lousy judge of character. He had three officers in his sights, a captain and two lieutenants. If he killed the right one, the Union Army’s victory at the Battle of Martin’s Hill would be guaranteed. So he made his choice and killed the Rebel cavalry’s commanding officer, Captain von Hartz.
Big mistake.
He should have concentrated on the small, insignificant-looking first lieutenant instead. Because the death of Captain von Hertz put Dusty Fog in command of the Texas Light Cavalry’s hard-riding, harder-hitting Company ‘C’. And with Dusty at their head, there was going to be hell to pay for the Bluebellies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Thomas Edson was born at Worksop, Nottinghamshire, on February 17 1928, the son of a miner who was killed in an accident when John was nine. He left Shirebrook Selective Central School at 14 to work in a stone quarry and joined the Army four years later.

As a sergeant in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, Edson served in Kenya during the Emergency, on one occasion killing five Mau Mau on patrol. He started writing in Hong Kong, and when he won a large cash prize in a tombola he invested in a typewriter.

On coming out of the Army after 12 years with a wife and children to support, Edson learned his craft while running a fish-and-chip shop and working on the production line at a local pet food factory. His efforts paid off when Trail Boss (1961) won second prize in a competition with a promise of publication and an outright payment of £50.

The publishers offered £25 more for each subsequent book, and with the addition of earnings from serial-writing for the comic Victor, Edson was able to settle down to professional authorship. When the comic's owners decided that nobody read cowboy stories any more, he was forced to get a job as a postman (the job had the by-product of enabling him to lose six stone in weight from his original 18).

Edson's prospects improved when Corgi Books took over his publisher, encouraged him to produce seven books a year and promised him royalties for the first time. In 1974 he made his first visit to the United States, to which he was to return regularly in search of reference books. He declared that he had no desire to live in the Wild West, adding: "I've never even been on a horse. I've seen those things, and they look highly dangerous at both ends and bloody uncomfortable in the middle. My only contact was to shoot them for dog meat."

His heroes were often based on his favourite film stars, so that Dusty Fog resembled Audie Murphy, and the Ysabel Kid was an amalgam of Elvis Presley in Flaming Star and Jack Buetel in The Outlaw.

Before becoming a recluse in his last years, JT's favourite boast was that Melton Mowbray was famous for three things: "The pie, Stilton cheese and myself but not necessarily in that order."

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

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About the author

J.T. Edson

183 books78 followers
John Thomas Edson is an English writer of Westerns.

He was born in 1928.He was obsessed with Westerns from an early age and often "rewrote" cowboy movies that he had seen at the cinema. One thing that always intrigued him was the minutiae—how did the baddie's gun jam? What were the mechanics of cheating at cards? How did Westerners really dress and speak?

His writing was helped to develop by a schoolteacher who encouraged him. Now lives in Leicester, Leicestershire.[citation needed]

During his 20s and 30s, Edson served in His Majesty's Armed Forces for 12 years as a Dog Trainer. Cooped up in barracks for long periods, he devoured books by the great escapist writers (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert McCraig, Nelson C. Nye and Edgar Wallace). He also sat through hours of movies starring John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Errol Flynn and his all-time favourite, Audie Murphy.

His first appearance in print was "Hints On Self-Preservation when attacked by a War Dog" in the Osnabrück camp magazine Shufti in 1947. Acquiring a typewriter in the early 1950s and putting it to good use while posted to Hong Kong, by the time of his discharge he had written 10 Westerns, an early version of Bunduki and the first of the short detective-type stories starring Waco.

Upon leaving HM forces, JT 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 had the need for supplementary income from time-to-time and also served as a postman, and the proprietor of a fish 'n' chip shop. Furthermore, he branched out as a writer and wrote five series of short stories (Dan Hollick, Dog Handler) for the Victor boys papers, and wrote the "box captions" for comic strips, which instilled discipline and the ability to convey maximum information with minimum words.


His writing career forged ahead when he joined Corgi Books in the late '60s, which gave JT exposure through a major publishing house, as well as the opportunity to branch out from the core Westerns into the Rockabye County, the science-fiction hero Bunduki and other series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._T._Edson

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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
573 reviews
July 23, 2019
Enjoyable western

Good old fashioned western, good vs. Bad. Just enjoyable experience as whole lot of action and adventures. Not realism as other tales, but just plain old fashioned western.
22 reviews
November 5, 2019
A good read

For a enjoyable fun story I recommend all j.t.edsons works. They're easy clean and can be put down fast if you need to stop for some reason then returned to with no problems.
862 reviews2 followers
May 6, 2018
Outstanding!

This is an interesting and exciting read of the shenanigans of or Armies during the nations first civil war. It is well written and edited!
Profile Image for C.A. A. Powell.
Author 14 books48 followers
January 23, 2018
Pulp western. Simple gun ho hero stuff with Dusty Fog. The story is set during the American civil war. As said before, it is a pulp western for fans of this genre. Maybe people who read other things might not be so ready for it, but western lovers will enjoy this action-packed tale. This particular story is my favourite Dusty Fog adventure. He is a Confederate soldier in charge of a detachment of cavalry. He must take command after the senior officer is shot by a sniper.

Dusty is a clean-cut hero who possesses intelligence and dare. Almost a swashbuckling adventurer making the Confederate cause appear a little more romantic then it is. Despite this, I enjoyed the action and found myself seduced by the dash and daring of it all.
Profile Image for Brian Turner.
707 reviews12 followers
September 24, 2016
JT Edson moves his well known characters into the Civil War, showing them as a bit younger and less experienced.

This book has Dusty Fog and Red Blaze having responsibility thrust on them as they go through various adventures on behalf of the Confederate Army.

As usual, he always has something going on and it reads quite well. The secondary characters in the regiment are a good addition.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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