Jon Sharpe was the original author of The Trailsman

The Trailsman

The Trailsman is a series of short Western novels published since 1980 by Signet books, a division of New American Library. The series is still published under the name Jon Sharpe, the original author of the series, although it is now written by a number of ghostwriters under contract...

 series of Western novels, published by New American Library

New American Library

New American Library is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948; it produced affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works, as well as popular, pulp, and "hard-boiled" fiction. Non-fiction, original, and hardcopy issues were also produced.Victor Weybright and Kurt...

, a division of Penguin Group (USA). The monthly series, which has run since the early 1980s, was created by author Jon Messmann, who wrote most of the first 200 books in the series under the Jon Sharpe pseudonym until his retirement in the late 1990s (Messmann died in 2004).

The Trailsman series still uses Jon Sharpe as a house name covering various ghostwriters (among them David Robbins, Robert J Randisi

Robert J Randisi

Robert J. Randisi is an American author who writes in the detective and Western genres.He has authored more than 500 published books and has edited more than 30 anthologies of short stories. Booklist magazine said he "may be the last of the pulp writers."...

, J. B. Keller, Bill Crider

Bill Crider

Bill Crider was born in Mexia, Texas. He received an M.A. at the University of North Texas . Later, he taught English at Howard Payne University for twelve years, before earning a Ph.D. at the University of Texas, where he wrote a dissertation on the hardboiled detective novel...

, Ed Gorman

Edward Gorman

Ed Gorman is an award-winning American author best known for his crime and mystery fiction. He wrote The Poker Club which is currently in post production for a film of the same name directed by Tim McCann....

, Will C. Knott, Robert Vardeman, John Edward Ames

John Edward Ames

John Edward Ames is an American writer of novels and short stories from Toledo, Ohio. A critically acclaimed writer of western fiction, Ames began his career writing for pulp magazines before penning horror novels and stories...

, and James Reasoner

James Reasoner

American author James Reasoner specializes in historical military novels, westerns, and mysteries. He also writes under the pseudonyms "Mike Jameson" and "Dana Fuller Ross." He has written more than 40 novels. His spouse, Livia Washburn Reasoner, is also a prolific writer of westerns, mysteries,...

) under contract with the publisher. These books are best described as "adult" Westerns with lots of action.

Another series created by Messmann, Canyon O'Grady, was also attributed to Sharpe.