Bad Hombre — J.T. Edson

When the members of the Rockabye County Sheriff's Office spoke of a bad hombre, they usually meant an exceptionally large, tough, vicious and ruthless criminal with a temper as mean as a stick-teased rattlesnake's.
The small, slender, meek-looking Oscar Burgenhof was so insignificant in appearance that he might be passed unnoticed on a deserted street. Yet his weird and erotic tastes in entertainment had driven him to a life of crime. By the time Burgenhof was brought to justice, he had killed five people and involved Woman Deputy Alice Fayde in the tightest, most bizarre and perilous situation of her life. No matter how he might look, Oscar Burgenhof was a bad hombre.

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.