Mississippi Raider

Civil War #2

by J.T. Edson

PICCADILLY PUBLISHING is dedicated to reissuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today! MISSISSIPPI RAIDERComanche is traditionally listed as the first book in the series but as it takes place entirely before the start of the war the publishers have discounted it and begin Dusty Fog's Civil War with Mississippi Raider. This is an adventure starring Belle Boyd not Dusty Fog ...She came out of the Louisiana bayou, a hard-riding young beauty who had seen her parents killed in cold blood by agents from the North. Driven by her desire for revenge, Belle joined the Great Cause. That took her into the heart of a nation cleaved in two, and closer to her parents’ killers. Joining the Secret Service of the Confederacy, she pitted her courage, wits and fighting skills against the Union’s best agents. But while she spawned a legend with her daring escapades and undercover work, her greatest challenge still lay ahead, on a mission deep behind enemy lines – to stop a deadly new weapon from entering the war!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, "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 "The pie, Stilton cheese and myself but not necessarily in that order."

Genres: Westerns

189 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

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

Reviews

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best J T Edson I've read. The skills possessed by Belle Boyd where too unbelievably wonderful for a girl of her age, and it did bang on rather that she would be known as "Rebel Spy"!

I suppose it could be that I've grown up since I read the majority of them, but hope that's not the case. It makes me rethink reading some of his books, as it had been my intention to read all those set during the civil war.

[Douglas Hull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

I had enjoyed this book when it was first published. Unfortunately a hurricane took my collection of original paper backs. Now I can slowly rebuilding my collection. First the war year's then the floating outfit, followed by others.

[larry brashear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Book!

A fine tale of what it must have been during the war between the CSA and the northern aggressors. Well written and edited.

[Ashlee Weber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, the plot was good. Was a little hard to follow and get into at times.

[Jacquie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I'd only read this once before, but having started to read Renegade aka Back to the Bloody Border I felt the need to reacquaint myself with Belle Boyd's back story. Although this is the first or second book in the Civil War series (Comanche is traditionally listed as the first but it takes place entirely before the start of the war) it was the last to be written and so contradicts several details listed in the rest of the Civil War and Floating Outfit series. One example is in The Hooded Riders (written in 1980) where Belle acknowledges her previous relationship with Dusty and the Ysabel Kid but does not know Stone Hart. Captain Stone Hart plays a very important role in part four of this book (published in 1996) and in fact receives his infamous scar saving Belle's life. The earlier sections of the book describe the murder of Belle's parents and destruction of their plantation as well as the training Belle undertakes to qualify for the Confederate secret service. How Belle finally avenges her parent's death is told in Renegade or as it was originally published Back to the Bloody Border.

[Eric Troup · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story, distracting writing style.

I found the story and characters compelling, but the author's annoying penchant for run-on sentences and textbook-style summarizations made this an unfortunately distracting read. Still, I will be reading the next in the series.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earliest of Etson's books on Dusty Fog's Civil War action. This one only concerning The Rebel Spy: Belle Boyd. Her history, early training and work.