[Civil War 12] • Civil War 11 · the Bloody Border

A mercenary General in Mexico offered to use his army for the Confederate cause. Belle Boyd, the Rebel Spy, received orders to deliver $15,000.00 as payment for his services. Helping her rode two tough Texans, the Ysabel Kid and his father. Matched against them were the United States Secret Service, determined to prevent the delivery; the French, who wanted the gold for Maximilian; Mexican supporters of Juarez who saw it as a way of freeing their country from foreign domination; and, when word of it leaked out, the worst rabble of murderous thieves the bloody border between Texas and Mexico ever saw.

J.T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.