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The brainchild of Amazon Kindle Number One Bestselling Western Writers Mike Stotter and Ben Bridges, Piccadilly Publishing is dedicated to issuing classic series fiction from yesterday and today!
SLIP GUN
Folks said that Waxahachie Smith was finished when his enemies cut off both his trigger-fingers. But he came from a breed that did not accept defeat.
So he rode the range, ready to sell his fighting skills to the highest bidder. Nor was he ever out of employment when it was found he could still handle a gun with deadly speed.
The Colt carried by Smith looked like an ordinary Civilian Model Peacemaker. Except that it had no trigger and its short smooth hammer-spur was set low on the hammer. Internally, the trigger half of the bolt spring had been removed and the bolt-cam on the hammer reduced in length. The barrel was without rifling and the .45 bullets in the cylinder each held three balls.
By converting his Colt into a slip gun, Smith removed the need for a trigger-finger - and made it the fastest, most deadly weapon in the West.
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."
Genre: Western
SLIP GUN
Folks said that Waxahachie Smith was finished when his enemies cut off both his trigger-fingers. But he came from a breed that did not accept defeat.
So he rode the range, ready to sell his fighting skills to the highest bidder. Nor was he ever out of employment when it was found he could still handle a gun with deadly speed.
The Colt carried by Smith looked like an ordinary Civilian Model Peacemaker. Except that it had no trigger and its short smooth hammer-spur was set low on the hammer. Internally, the trigger half of the bolt spring had been removed and the bolt-cam on the hammer reduced in length. The barrel was without rifling and the .45 bullets in the cylinder each held three balls.
By converting his Colt into a slip gun, Smith removed the need for a trigger-finger - and made it the fastest, most deadly weapon in the West.
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."
Genre: Western
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