Personally, I dont keep files, preferring to rely on the resources of my imagination and memory a proud boast that means I dont have to bother making notes. It was dirty, dangerous work but Rainey loved it. That was the night Kincaid found that the cards were stacked against him with the table stakes life or deathhis life, his death. July 12, 2012. Barkeeps and desk clerks are almost uniformly smug and rather greasy; bankers are either fat or very thin and usually prove nefarious table hands are unctuous, usually grizzled, and usually greedy hotel owners are Laurence.

Do you think I am putting you on while my tongue is lodged firmly in my cheek? This time, armed with his hand-picked arsenal of superweapons, he moves south for his most savage hit: a Mafia summit conference in a New Orleans motel where no one outside the syndicate can get in, or out, alive. 2) Writing is ninety-eight percent perspiration and two percent inspiration. In sequence, McLain was somewhat gentler than other of our central characters, and that decided the development of the peripheral folk. The Syndicate had hurt of lot of people. Stopped dead if necessary.

And nothing - nothing - would get in his way.

And a way to deliver it: a bi-plane. You can buy Sudden Strikes Back via this direct link: A youthful looking Angus Wells and an even more younger Dave Whitehead. Now it may be said that because of my facile methods of researching and writing, the quality of my work would be higher if I researched at great length and depth and took three months or three years to write the books I produce in three weeks. Issuing New and Classic Fiction from Yesterday and Today! 5. The harsh reality of flying fists and whining bullets shattered the dream and Jubal was forced to acknowledge the truth about himself. Pursuing him came the town marshal, a noose at the ready for Durant's neck! When they head that a fortune was buried somewhere out in the hills, the citizens remembered how kill. The Westerns are set at the end of the American Civil War with the hero thrown into many gun-blazing adventures. Then luck took a hand, when I got a job on a book trade journal. The movie happened to be a Western. Then two murders were committed, right out on the open prairie and suddenly everyone became a suspect. But I use them sparingly, and only when I am actually engaged in writing an outline or a book. That was part of having had that forty-nine percent of luck. Doing research on the hoof, as it were, keeps me from padding out my Westerns with unnecessary detail, which always strikes me in other books (not Westerns, because I still dont read them) as a pretentious airing of knowledge and only tends to slow down the story. Not as in the books, but as in the need of the idea. And as if that wasnt enough, there are also introductions and afterwords by PP co-founders MIKE STOTTER and BEN BRIDGES! But he is mistaken. So, they come from movies; from books read and admired; from records; from friends; from the repertory company of the group mind. It could just work but between them and the prize Monatana Abbott stood in their way. Initially, a couple of clichs about writing, which, like most clichs on any subject, contain more than a mere grain of truth: 1) Theres only one way to be a writer apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and write. Jared Hawk was a gunfighter. If youve got any running characters (Marshal Nolan in GUNSLINGER, for example) they also need some personally identifying element. Sounds crazy? EXACTLY whore a characters comes from is pretty much anyones guess, and the sources will change with the technique and temperament of the individual authors. Gatling: Master armorer, dead shot and expert in death. And they didnt count for much in the bloody fury of rebellion. a series of violent set-pieces shockingly presented within the framework of a basic, generally off-beat premise, with a humorous punchline forming the ending to each of the twelve to eighteen chapters. The closer he got to where his outlaw quarry was, the more guns were turned on him. Instead they came charging down on him, screaming and brandishing their rifles, and an even more fearful thought than that of death hit him hard. These will not inevitably be for large amounts, but they will certainly be regular. When Adam Steele rode in, sweaty and shabby after too long on the trail, leading a gelding with two dead men lashed across the saddle, Mesa was shocked. And if you want people to pay good money for the service you are providing, you have to give them what they want, not what you think they should want. The infamous bounty hunter, Iron Eyes escorts Squirrel Sallys battle-scarred stagecoach through the streets of Lobo. One of the best when speed and skill were as vital to survival as food in your belly. Just enjoy receiving your royalty checks. Theres an old Western saying that the tail dies at sundownmeaning that no matter when a rattlesnake is killed, it never fully expires until the setting of the sun. Shane Preston and Jonah Jones are two gunfighters riding the American wilderness with no guarantees of success, but once they took a man's money they never quit a job until it was complete. (Nowadays I write eight such outlines each spring four each for Edge and Steele, the two series I presently do. Mostly, the leading characters ore all predictably fictitious. Zapata held the south; Pancho Villa the north. I may have to rewrite ten or a dozen pages before Im finished. Any way he could. Then one night Crazy Joe Coraldi, a good-looking and well-known Mafioso (who was jailed as a teen on two convictions of sodomy, by the way), showed up in Brigantis store and demanded that Briganti get him some heavy-duty weaponry. On books that go well, I need only to correct typing and spelling errors. He replaced the missing hand with a claw. What he didnt bank on was the Outlaw Queen Clementine Jones, who had a soft spot for Teal. Tough, bitter and ruthless, he has a special dislike of trespassers as the mob was going to find out Having finally completed the quest for vengeance they had set themselves, gunfighters Shane Preston and Jonah Jones retired to the small town of Lazy Rim. His mission: to bring law and order to a violent land. At the heart of it: a female liberator. A ghost-town at midnight; a hearse driven by a dead man and a coffin full of gold coins. Thus, should I need to set a scene in a mine, on a train, in an actual town or perhaps feature people who actually lived, then I will pull the necessary books from my shelves.

Rainey signed onat $2000 a monthas the leader of a special seek and destroy squad. He had to be, since, as Ive said, I had never read a Western in my life before I wrote those first two Edge titles. Hong Kong: where East meets West and where anything can be had for a price. His orders: take no prisoners. Ones who wore guns on their hips. And when the gun smoke cleared, twelve dead men would be bound for Boot Hill . Also, Rogets Thesaurus, because, although the first word a writer thinks of is invariably the best one, there are times when no one can delve deeply enough into memory to come up with the right word first. Briganti recuperated in the hospital and slipped out from under his police guard. But an outlaw and a lawmen had other ideas. Steel had to stay sharp to stay alive. The infamous bounty hunter, Iron Eyes leaves his lady friend, Squirrel Sally, alone in a remote town. That way you dont overload your story with too much irrelevant material just because you spent a great deal of time digging for it. So when the man called Edge rode into town it was pretty much of an unusual happening - and he was only meaning to pass through. Ruthless, indifferent to his own survival, he lives only to destroy the Mafia. And what did I get from the trip that will be of use to me in writing future Westerns? Because Edge was an original. Some call me Azul. He drew as he spoke, triggering the Colt in a violent explosion of sound that blew the Mexican backwards off his feet, twisting him around so that he hit the sand face down. Ruthless, indifferent to his own survival, he lives only to destroy the Mafia. Breed is half Apache; Hawk has a crippled hand; Jubal, is a doctor; and so on. He took the bodies to Lodge Creek to report it and find out why they were set on killing him. If you adopt rule five, make your series more of a serial, i.e., with your central character developing a little more in each book. McAllister had to do somethingfast. Writing books is a public service job. CHESTER FORTUNE 1: DEAD SET by Terry Harknett This taught me how to sweat as I wrote five pages a night every night after completing a full days work on one or another fringe of journalism. Now he would strike his blow without mercy, because he was called Breed. We started out with the deliberate intention of producing a gentler Western, and hit on the development of a town as a central them by a mixture of design, accident, and watching CENTENNIAL on TV. Out of whatever mental processes (weird mind?) THE REAPER 1: COMES THE REAPER by B. J. Holmes They wanted it to remain lawless, tough and brutal. Pay no attention to people whether your next-door neighbour or the most high-brow critic on the Sunday book section who smile or even sneer at you for being a writer of Westerns. There are times you sit around pounding your brain for an idea that wont come; and others when a character just springs naturally to mind. On my desk when I am writing are a half dozen dictionaries, because my spelling is bad. And after this first Western was well received, commissions for four more books from movies followed. On the books that go less easily. Rainey goes where the fighting is, no matter what the odds. Rem McAllister rode into the goldfield, a badge on his vest and a gun at his hip. She had to be stopped. Walk away from his latest quest for justice or kill a woman whose emotional scars match his own? You will have to get your own inspiration and keep your fingers crossed that Lady Luck will smile on you. They were sent in to clean the territory up but it seemed that someone else was already onto them and would stop at nothing to make sure they failed in their mission! Chiefly, they do come straight out from the fantasy land inside my skull, springing up in accordance with the demands of setting and general style of the book Im writing at the time. Broke it time and time again! They are tailored to meet the requirements of the book, and only once in a while are based on real people. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. So it was either face a lynch-mob or make a break for it, and join up with Luther Slades gang of hardcases. In Vegas only the amateurs buck the big odds, and Tom Kincaid was a professional. Even when the sadistic Lieutenant Pinner removed two of his fingers for allegedly stealing his ornamental knife, and branded him Cuchillo Oro the Golden Knife he sought a peaceful solution. But assassination from ambush was not something he could look away from. If you are in an ivory tower about becoming a published, full-time writer, climb down out of it.

THE GRINGOSfour outlawed Americans fighting for freedom, justiceand moneyin the bloody chaos that is revolutionary Mexico 1913. He was violent, anti-social and chauvenistic, and only survived in his harsh, Spaghetti-western style environment by being twice as mean as his opponents. Together they were THE GRINGOS - four men with nothing to lose but their lives. At the end of each working day I read through the work I have done, and then at the end of the book I read the entire typescript. He was young and impressionable, when he killed a man in self-defense, Pedro knew no one would take the side of a greaser. That was my tribute to John Ford and John Wayne, and I had a lot of fun doing it Blake Durant had no choice but to kill the two young men hed never seen before. 4 readers have added this author as a 'Favorite Author'. Nolan, Christie and all the rest followed on: I wanted to start on a revenge theme, and they just came into my mind (and took over). I had not seen it and I had never read a Western novel. Scarlett and Jesse aka The Sweetheart Killers. Armed with the latest automatic weapons from all over the world and paid in gold to test them on living bodies, he was probably the single most dangerous man in the Old West. And why have not Adam Steele, Jubal Cade, and Apache (three more Western series I created) achieved the same best-selling status?

When I wrote the first two Edge titles, my sole sources of reference were a map of present day United States and my recollections of movies I had seen. Under the name Thorne Douglas he penned the five-book RANCHO BRAVO saga. Steele should have known better to stay out of it but he couldn't let her die (or worse) at their hands. It was planned that way from the start, when forno particular reason I decided a half-breed Apache hero was a good one. There was more going on in that corner of Arizona than met the eye, and one of the dead Indians had been a friend of Shanes from his army days, so that made it personal, too. In the end there would be violencea lot of it.

And Montana knew that that drunken killer would strike again! He couldn't replace his wife. The sole influence I had were movie and TV series preconceptions from another medium, unlike all those unsuccessful mysteries I had written previously (and which I continued to write for a time after Edge succeeded). And Im grateful they are. And they need to come from somewhere. Deserter, with nothing to gain but vengeance. Things were so bad that folks had started calling it The Killing Ground instead. But Sally isnt so easily abandoned, and promptly sets out after him. Along with additions to established series we are very proud to introduce Matt Chisholms Storm family saga with STAMPEDE; Peter Brandvold joins us with his Lou Prophet series.

And the publisher gives me contracts for these eight books. His latest blow was the hi-jack of a small fortune in currency and weapons, part of an arms deal The Company was organising. And that was how GRINGOS got its characters. And he wasn't going to appease the outlaws not without a fight. Still he did stay around long enough to discover that for a dying town, the gunplay was lively enough and killing looked like being a growth industry. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Then the publisher concerned was struck by one of those examples of the two percent inspiration that all publishers and authors wish they could come up with more often. Dead. Edge really was, as the cover copy promised, "a new kind of western hero." His talent for killing was up for hire. But in Reynosa there was an answer to the siege: enough explosive to blast the rebels to hell. Robert Briganti is the Assassin. The Organization didnt want any lawman cleaning up this wild territory. But I had seen my fair share of oaters on the big screen and on TV enough, anyway, to know what the western landscape looked like. These are avaliable in Kindle from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk; Smashwords Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony Reader Store, Kobo, the Diesel eBook Store, Baker & Taylors Blio and Axis360 (libraries!) Cuchillo was a warrior to be feared, but he was not a man easily driven to war. Night-riders wiped out an entire tribe of Navajo Indians. And for Shane and Jonah dealing meant hot lead from their Colt .45s. The trouble was, when it came to a showdown, could Benedict or Brazos kill a woman, especially a woman like Scarlett? The FARGO series will boast all-new cover art by Edward Martin and SUNDANCE will have covers painted by fan favourite Tony Masero. Settled, growing, thriving. Edson gathered together in one volume.

Jim Rainey had fought in five wars, but the civil war in Lebanon is and was the bloodiest, most fiercely waged conflict in Middle East history. They all knew what would happen if they failedbut failure wasnt a word the Gringos knew. JONAS STRONG - Top Sergeant, damned by his color. John T McLain learnt the deadly trade of killing in the Civil War. It killed everyone Stark held dear and now hes out to take his own kind of bloody vengeance on the murderers concerned. If what you first put down on the page makes sense and advances the story, your readers will not mind a half dozen split infinitives. Benjamin Leopold Haas (1926-1977) was a serious novelist who wrote westerns and action-adventure books on the side. And a big thank you to those buying our books. Here is the pdf version of the book which we hope you enjoy: Piccadilly Publishing Free Sampler Various. And thus my protagonist, Edge, came into being, destined to appear in from four to six books per year (current number of titles available, twenty-nine) and to chalk up world sales of more than ten million copies in the five or so years since his inception. Armed with his arsenal of superweapons, he meets his match in a super-cool woman with her own thirst for vengeance.

Tyler Wyatt's life now centred on tracking down and killing the men responsible. That was when Fate stepped in and blew the whole deal to shreds. Many years ago Mike and Dave were involved in the George G Gilman Appreciation Society, which segued into The Westerner. I start out with an outline of the projected story a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the plot, which may be as few as three or as many as eight pages long. In BLOOD DEBT, for example, I decided right from the start that Breeds path was going to intertwine with that of Ethan Allen, out of the all-time great THE SERCHERS. Writing is not an exact science, so forget about trying to write the perfect sentence, let alone the perfect novel. JAMIE DURHAM - The needle of morphine was the only answer to his ruined face. Two horses, rightfully the property of the lawmen whod just awakened the man called Edge and told him that his horse had been liberated by a night-time thief whod been liberated from Nebraskas Carlsburg Penitentiary by his brothers-in-outlawry. Two non-Western series compliment these with Neil Hunters SCORPION, the first in a trilogy and a cracking thriller from Keith Hetherington. But its the only word that describes the indefinable process that lets us do that. Hed left a trail of blood from Mexico to the Canadian border, collected a gang of the toughest guns in the West around him, then holed up in the high country of Wyoming. For, I can assure you, sitting down at a typewriter with a virtually pre-sold project in mind is much more fun than working in limbo with a hope and a prayer for company. And so the gunsmith became a killer and one of the West's most deadliest McAllister had to get a wagon train through Apache country. It tends to be a question of balancing personal tastes with narrative direction. Iron Eyes had the scent of his prey in his nostrils, and was determined to add yet another notch to the gun-grip of his infamous Navy Colt. Briganti told him to go to hell. We dreamed up Alice and Shawn because someone had to run the saloon, and we both fancied the idea of using a woman as a strong character. Crass commercialism and not the view of an artist? They killed his wife. And in three weeks, I have a finished manuscript of from 225 to 260 pages. Sure, because I am a commercial writer, a craftsman with no claim to being an artist. 2. Only Gatling had the skill to eliminate him and his rabble. But for these he was called George G. Gilman. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Sudden Strikes Back (A Sudden Western Book 1), Trackdown (A Bodie the Stalker Western Book 1), Book 1 of 10: A Bodie the Stalker Western, Bloody Bounty (A Bodie the Stalker Western Book 2), Book 2 of 10: A Bodie the Stalker Western, Riders of the Bar 10 (A Bar 10 Western Book 1), Jason Brand 1: Gun for Hire (A Jason Brand Western), Herne the Hunter 2: River of Blood (A Herne the Hunter Western), Crow 2: Worse Than Death (A Crow Western), Herne the Hunter 1: White Death (A Herne the Hunter Western), Cade 1: Darksiders (A Cade Science Fiction Adventure), Incident at Butler's Station (Piccadilly Publishing Presents Book 1). The Company was an international syndicate that dealt in every kind of crime that could make money out of human degradation. It allsounds easy on paper.

A BRAND NEW WESTERN ADVENTURE. Nancy and Michael died on the scene. But he couldnt stop Bannister from heading across the Rockies with a beautiful young woman worth her weight in gold in the Frisco white slave market. An outlaw gang shadowed the wagons - thinking they were easy prey. He could have had them killed on the spot. All I claim is that I am successful, because my products sell on a free market, and that I work as hard as I can to do the best I can within my known limits. Tired of life driving cattle, Duke Benedict quit the trail; and headed for Abilene to indulge in cards and women. Many men had worn the marshals star in Abilene and failed. Instead he held one of them hostage and sent the others to hijack a government arms train. Calamity Jane, Belle The Rebel Spy Boyd, Betty Hardin, Dawn Drummond-Clayton, Woman Deputy Alice Fayde, and Amanda Tweedle, the baby-faced Blonde Genius, all demonstrate that ladies too have their place in action-packed adventure stories. Now the War was over he went to Texas, looking for a new start. In his wake was a trail of blood which tainted his footsteps and marked him as a killer. or how the books get filled with all those oddballs. Gatling was a master armorer, a dead shot and an expert in his fieldwhich was death. A band of outlaws saw easy pickings - McLain saw death, ready to use his Colt Dragoon or Sharps buffalo gun. Mexico City was caught in the pincer grip of the rebel armies. For instance, the characters in a BREED tend to be more grotesque than those in a PEACEMAKER, simply because the basic approach of the BREED series is more flamboyant. Contrary to what the textbooks (and probably other articles in this magazine) may say, my advice is to write about what you do not know! PICCADILLY PUBLISHING is dedicated to reissuing classic series fiction from the 1970s, 80s, 90s and Beyond! Thus was William Terry (the name I used on the book, so it would not clash with the names I had used for my mysteries) born.

We decided a team would be more plausible and so set out to create one. It goes to show that there is a readership out there for the older stories, and we are planning to build on this success. Never try to write an entire series set during the Civil War. Deep in dangerous terrain, Iron Eyes closes in on outlaws Joe Hyams and Buster Jones. He had been taught to heal, his destiny was to kill. They called Pedro Vellere the Mexican Kid. Ed worked for the Post Office until he was made redundant in a reorganisation. These are the Western adventures of Hank Brazos and Duke Benedict. Something like GRINGOS is a different kettle of fish altogether, or a different plate of tamales. It drew back but not for long. When he ran out on her, that affection turned to hate, and a burning desire for revenge. The others followed on. Over the coming months and years we will be releasing ALL of these books at regular intervals, in their correct sequence. You can check it out by clicking right HERE. Why this success? It killed everyone Stark held dear and now hes out to take his own kind of bloody vengeance on the murderers concerned. John Stark was in France on the run from the British police, a wanted man fighting a single-handed war against the international crime syndicate. That incident set Ryker on a vengeance trail of blood and conflict that would test his gun-skill to its farthest limits. Top subscription boxes right to your door, 1996-2022, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Nowhere to go but hell. There was a chance of salvation for the Mexican Kid, when Shane Preston and Jonah Jones rode into the town Trouble was brewing between the cattlemen and the railroaders, and though Blake Durant wanted no part in it, Fate had other ideas. In November 1980 the first newsletter carried a piece by Terry on how to write Westerns. For Benedict and Brazos, it was the start of another bullet-fast adventure.