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Sam Flint #1
Flint's Gift
Sam Flint is a stubborn, crusty frontier editor, with a passion for helping the underdog, making sure justice is done, and rooting out corruption. He's been chased out of more frontier towns than he remembers. Now, in Payday, Arizona, he's at it again. Payday is an Eden until some newcomers arrive, and then Flint discovers he's up against people who want to own Payday, and everyone in it.
354 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1997
10 people want to read
About the author
Richard S. Wheeler
124 books66 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
There are other authors with this name. One writes Marine Corps history. Another, Civil War history. Another writes in the political sciences.
Richard S. (Shaw) Wheeler was born in Milwaukee in 1935 and grew up in nearby Wauwatosa.
There are other authors with this name. One writes Marine Corps history. Another, Civil War history. Another writes in the political sciences.
Richard S. (Shaw) Wheeler was born in Milwaukee in 1935 and grew up in nearby Wauwatosa.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 18, 2014
Sam Flint is a newspaperman, newly arrived to a frontier settlement in Arizona Territory called “Payday”. He is encouraged by the Eden-like budding town site and decides to setup his press and start a weekly newspaper. He meets friends, town leaders, and one particularly attractive woman that peeks his interest. His goal of attracting other entrepreneurial-minded people who can help build the town meets with some success but also starts to attract other sorts as well, including a soulless woman who begins to build an empire of gambling, prostitution, and extortion.
I really enjoy reading about frontier towns and their growing pains and this one combines many of my favorite elements including a variety of characters with interesting backstories and with conflicting goals and motivations. Sam Flint, himself tries to report the facts as best he knows them and letting the light shine where it may. Of course that in turn leads to more conflict and we are off to a nice read.
This is the first of three books with Sam Flint as the main character but in each one he moves on to a new town. So it might be considered a trilogy but this novel really does stand alone. I will definitely be reading the other two.
I really enjoy reading about frontier towns and their growing pains and this one combines many of my favorite elements including a variety of characters with interesting backstories and with conflicting goals and motivations. Sam Flint, himself tries to report the facts as best he knows them and letting the light shine where it may. Of course that in turn leads to more conflict and we are off to a nice read.
This is the first of three books with Sam Flint as the main character but in each one he moves on to a new town. So it might be considered a trilogy but this novel really does stand alone. I will definitely be reading the other two.
June 16, 2017
What a great story !! This is not a cowboy story, as we are used to ... there is very little gun play - just a bit at the end. This is the story of a young newspaper editor who starts up a paper in a very small town in the 1870's. The ranchers and townsmen are still somewhat divided between north and south.
Thanks to his paper, people are drawn there ... both the good and the bad, but when the bad threaten an anarchy, the good win out. Flint has great integrity as he decides what should go into print. The Buell character is very complex but all ends well there also. This is my favorite western author, after Zane Grey.
Thanks to his paper, people are drawn there ... both the good and the bad, but when the bad threaten an anarchy, the good win out. Flint has great integrity as he decides what should go into print. The Buell character is very complex but all ends well there also. This is my favorite western author, after Zane Grey.
November 14, 2021
One of this author’s best attributes is his careful observation of the human condition. Unlike superficial silly westerns where it’s good against evil and good always gets the ingenue, Wheller delves deeper. His books look at what motivates people. What triggers the greed? How do basically decent people oppose oppression and tyranny in their lives and communities? I don’t read Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour because of the relatively shallow formulaic nature of the books. It’s the same plot, different characters all too often. Not so with Richard S. Wheeler.
Sam Flint makes his way into the Arizona territory in 1870. His mules, Grant and Sherman, carry his small Cleveland printing press and all his type. Never prone to settle down, Sam wanders throughout the American west creating newspapers in small towns and either selling them or closing them down when the urge hits to move on.
He fought for the Union army, and Sam is a man who seeks out both sides of a story and prints the truth as fully as he can.
Merchants in Payday, Arizona have heard of Flint, and they want him in their town to run “The Payday Pioneer,” a newspaper they envision Flint would set up. In the years prior to wire services, small-town papers would exchange copies of their paper with editors in other small towns. That way, if you ran out of copy, you could always fill your pages with news from other papers as necessary. Sam establishes his paper and begins to serve as a one-man chamber of commerce for Payday. He extolls the town’s value, often thinking of it as a kind of Eden—a paradise where someone can come and homestead and become someone he never could be anywhere else.
Payday includes its share of memorable characters. There’s an unstable confederate colonel who destroys the livestock of a pacifist would-be homesteader who sets up on the colonel’s land. Yet the same man reaches out with kindness to a young widow in the community who will surely lose her ranch without his intervention. That’s the kind of thing I’m describing here—characters who are noble but flawed, complex and deep in their way. It is these characterizations that set Wheeler apart from other Western genre authors.
Flint’s bragging pays off. People do indeed come to the town to settle and grow it. But with the honest families come whores, drunks, and gamblers. It’s obvious that they will gain the upper hand in the affairs of the community unless the local paper can shed light on the evils and injustices and tyranny crafted by one whorehouse madam in particular.
Unlike our day when Many Americans hold low opinions of the media, Sam Flint’s time was a time where a good editor can do much to enhance life for those in his community. But the conflict that arises from Sam’s work will cost the community dearly.
I’m already looking forward to reading the next book in this trio. Wheeler’s descriptions are vivid and amazing; his writing alone makes books like this worth your effort and time.
Sam Flint makes his way into the Arizona territory in 1870. His mules, Grant and Sherman, carry his small Cleveland printing press and all his type. Never prone to settle down, Sam wanders throughout the American west creating newspapers in small towns and either selling them or closing them down when the urge hits to move on.
He fought for the Union army, and Sam is a man who seeks out both sides of a story and prints the truth as fully as he can.
Merchants in Payday, Arizona have heard of Flint, and they want him in their town to run “The Payday Pioneer,” a newspaper they envision Flint would set up. In the years prior to wire services, small-town papers would exchange copies of their paper with editors in other small towns. That way, if you ran out of copy, you could always fill your pages with news from other papers as necessary. Sam establishes his paper and begins to serve as a one-man chamber of commerce for Payday. He extolls the town’s value, often thinking of it as a kind of Eden—a paradise where someone can come and homestead and become someone he never could be anywhere else.
Payday includes its share of memorable characters. There’s an unstable confederate colonel who destroys the livestock of a pacifist would-be homesteader who sets up on the colonel’s land. Yet the same man reaches out with kindness to a young widow in the community who will surely lose her ranch without his intervention. That’s the kind of thing I’m describing here—characters who are noble but flawed, complex and deep in their way. It is these characterizations that set Wheeler apart from other Western genre authors.
Flint’s bragging pays off. People do indeed come to the town to settle and grow it. But with the honest families come whores, drunks, and gamblers. It’s obvious that they will gain the upper hand in the affairs of the community unless the local paper can shed light on the evils and injustices and tyranny crafted by one whorehouse madam in particular.
Unlike our day when Many Americans hold low opinions of the media, Sam Flint’s time was a time where a good editor can do much to enhance life for those in his community. But the conflict that arises from Sam’s work will cost the community dearly.
I’m already looking forward to reading the next book in this trio. Wheeler’s descriptions are vivid and amazing; his writing alone makes books like this worth your effort and time.
July 21, 2022
Typical western. It has the good guys, bad guys, a love story, a few secrets revealed, and a shoutout roundup at the end where the town is saved. I was into it just because I like westerns but it was predictable.
November 26, 2020
So interesting to listen to book about early settling in area in which one lives. Looking forward to listen to remainder of series.
March 12, 2022
Ok, what I like about Richard Wheeler’s characters is that they are normal flawed individuals that find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. They do amazing things!!
March 20, 2014
“Profiles in Courage” would have been a good title for this novel of life in a frontier settlement in Arizona Territory. The title character, Sam Flint, is a young newspaper editor who sets up his press in little Payday, agreeing to boost the town in the interests of its growth, in return for complete freedom to print all the news he finds fit to print. His editorial encomiums to Payday’s edenic virtues soon bring settlers and new residents. And with them comes a pack of unexpected trouble.
Read my review at my blog.
Read my review at my blog.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews