This is the third in Richard Wheeler’s
series about frontier newspaper editor, Sam Flint. We catch him this time
arriving in a silver mining settlement in Colorado. He’s been drawn there by a
cruel editorial in the town newspaper, The
Silver City Democrat, which smugly reported the suicide of a prostitute as
a victory for the town’s morally righteous and a blow at the corruptive
influence of vice.
Flint discovers that real estate is at a
premium in town, and he has to settle for rental space in the very apartment
where the prostitute took her life, harassed by the sheriff and his thug
deputies, and unable to pay the heavy taxes levied by the town on those deemed
undesirable.
Plot. Setting up shop as a rival newspaper, The Sentinel, Flint learns that his
competitor, Digby Westminster, has the town sewed up, with a monopoly on the
news and the advertising revenue. He manages a virtual cartel of local
merchants, permitting them to avoid competitive pricing of their goods and
services. Local law enforcement is also all too friendly with Westminster, and
judge and prosecutor use their influence to keep Flint uninformed of any shady
mishandling of public trust.
Flint’s only real friend in town is his
landlady, a freethinking and self-educated prostitute named Chastity Ford. He
finds her, in fact, over-friendly, especially as she shows up in his rooms at
odd hours in a revealing kimono. But she is undaunted by his embarrassment,
always teasing him for his unwillingness to unbend a bit in his cleaving to
moral rectitude and propriety.
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| Richard Wheeler |
More friends materialize in the family of
Marcus Bridge, a furniture maker who is also self-educated and maintains a
lending library in his shop. He is the first to break ranks with Westminster and
the rest of the merchants.
Rescue for Flint’s struggling newspaper
comes in the form of an itinerant typesetter, Jude Napoleon, who devises a plan
of attack on The Democrat, which erodes
its hold on the town and the mining company’s grip on the miners, who suffer
from low pay and hazardous working conditions.
Wheeler provides Flint with a steadily
rising tide of obstacles and threats, as he and Napoleon resist the efforts of
Westminster to drive them from town. It becomes a struggle fraught with danger,
and any reader committed to the ideals of responsible journalism and freedom of
the press will find their adrenalin flowing.
Wrapping up. This was the last in
the Sam Flint series. Reviews of the two previous novels, Flint’s Gift (1997) and Flint’s
Truth (1998), were posted a while ago here at BITS. Wheeler has created a memorable
character in Sam Flint, who represents the voice of reason and fair play in the
settlements of the frontier, where the press as an implement of civilization
came up against an older established order enforced by the gun and outlawry.
Flint’s Honor is currently
available in print, audio, and ebook formats at amazon and Barnes&Noble.
For more of Friday’s Forgotten Books, click on over to Patti Abbott’s blog.
Further reading:
BITS reviews
Coming up: Glossary of frontier fiction
I like all of Wheeler's stuff but have not read these three yet. Think they look like a nice winter read.
ReplyDeleteThey seem well researched. You learn more about running a small weekly newspaper than you expect to.
DeleteRon, I have never read a western with newspapers and editors as the key plot elements. It'd be interesting to read how Sam Flint overcomes the odds. In our times it wasn't long ago when powerful newspaper barons had a monopoly over news and advertising revenue, especially in small towns and cities.
ReplyDeleteToday, you don't need to look further than Rupert Murdoch.
DeleteRon, you are right. I forgot Murdoch. He owns one of India's leading English and Hindi cable channels under the STAR TV network.
DeleteI greatly appreciate your review and thank you for it. I will be out of touch for a while.
ReplyDelete