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Sam Flint #3
Flint's Honor
Sam Flint, a committed Old West journalist, returns with a dangerous attempt to start an honest newspaper as competition for the corrupt and powerful Silver City Democrat in the newly formed state of Colorado. Reprint.
320 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1999
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 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 1, 2021
This book proves the versatility of writing Richard S. Wheeler is capable of.
After reading several of his Barnaby Skye novels I ventured into Wheeler's vast knowledge of 1800's printing methods and equipment all contained in a superb story set in a mining town in Colorado. Basically a David vs Goliath theme with great character development and ability to demand you read one more chapter when you thought you couldn't read another word.
After reading several of his Barnaby Skye novels I ventured into Wheeler's vast knowledge of 1800's printing methods and equipment all contained in a superb story set in a mining town in Colorado. Basically a David vs Goliath theme with great character development and ability to demand you read one more chapter when you thought you couldn't read another word.
February 16, 2022
This is the final book in the Sam Flint trilogy, and I’ve enjoyed all these equally. Flint is an itinerant newspaper editor. By that, I mean he travels from community to community, sets up a small weekly paper, and uses it to right wrongs and make the communities better. He’s a great character to read, and Wheeler wrote all his character such that they are complex and thought-provoking.
As this book opens, his two mules, Grant and Sherman, are driving the wagon that contains his press into Silver City, Colorado. There’s already a well-established newspaper there, but Flint sees it as a despicable rag, catering to the powerful and having no room to air the concerns of the voiceless ones in the community. Flint hopes his weekly “sentinel” will solve that. So impossible is it for Flint to find room for an office that he sets up shop in a whorehouse. Naturally, the local sheriff, a big fan of the opposing newspaper, wants to levy a sin tax on Flint just as he does the prostitutes who inhabit the rooms above and around him. The head madam of the place is a 30-something-year-old woman named chastity. To his good credit, Flint doesn’t ever take advantage of her or any of the other girls. Instead, he pays his rent until the competition seeks to squeeze him out.
You’ll enjoy the newspaper war described here. It is purely fictional, but it provides a lazar-like focus, and it is intense. Things seem incredibly bleak and almost hopeless for Flint, and you’ll keep reading this just to see how he digs himself out of what seems an impossible situation. Granted this is about the triumph of good over evil, but it’s more. Flint points out here that when the ruling class loses the minds of men, it resorts to violence and censorship. There are bits of interesting treasure like that scattered through this book and indeed, the whole series.
As this book opens, his two mules, Grant and Sherman, are driving the wagon that contains his press into Silver City, Colorado. There’s already a well-established newspaper there, but Flint sees it as a despicable rag, catering to the powerful and having no room to air the concerns of the voiceless ones in the community. Flint hopes his weekly “sentinel” will solve that. So impossible is it for Flint to find room for an office that he sets up shop in a whorehouse. Naturally, the local sheriff, a big fan of the opposing newspaper, wants to levy a sin tax on Flint just as he does the prostitutes who inhabit the rooms above and around him. The head madam of the place is a 30-something-year-old woman named chastity. To his good credit, Flint doesn’t ever take advantage of her or any of the other girls. Instead, he pays his rent until the competition seeks to squeeze him out.
You’ll enjoy the newspaper war described here. It is purely fictional, but it provides a lazar-like focus, and it is intense. Things seem incredibly bleak and almost hopeless for Flint, and you’ll keep reading this just to see how he digs himself out of what seems an impossible situation. Granted this is about the triumph of good over evil, but it’s more. Flint points out here that when the ruling class loses the minds of men, it resorts to violence and censorship. There are bits of interesting treasure like that scattered through this book and indeed, the whole series.
June 29, 2020
Mr. Wheelers Newspapers
Excellent story of a wandering newspaper man with a purpose other than making a living. All three are page turners.
Enjoy
Excellent story of a wandering newspaper man with a purpose other than making a living. All three are page turners.
Enjoy
November 30, 2020
was long book with similarities in each off the series.
September 12, 2024
I loved this old West series and would like to read it again someday.
December 8, 2014
The third and final entry in this frontier fiction series about vagabond newspaper editor and publisher, Sam Flint, finds Sam in a little bit of a different situation than in his previous newspaper adventures. Usually he prefers to travel to a small town with no newspaper presence at all and start-up a new weekly rag. But this time he is drawn to the mining town of Silver Springs, Colorado which already has an established newspaper. The reason is simple. Sam had seen a copy of the current Silver Springs paper in which the editor had joked about the suicide of a prostitute, moralizing about how it was a good thing for the town. A little further digging illuminates the nature of the stranglehold that editor has on the town along with his support of greedy merchants and politicians, and it persuades Sam to open up a competing paper.
It’s the most difficult road that Sam Flint has had to traverse and that is really saying something considering the hurdles he has overcome in the previous two novels in the series. In addition to the despicably corrupt newspaper editor, there is also the owner of the biggest mines who thinks of himself as the overlord to the miners who work for him and whom he considers to be merely ants that are always replaceable. The sheriff is afraid to enforce the law on the powerful men in the town and the judge seems to act at the whims of the others. This power structure favors the businesses at the expense of the only taxed entities, the sporting houses. In other words, to enter this quagmire and hope to build an honest newspaper that can positively affect the town is a fool’s errand.
It isn’t long before Sam just can’t withstand the forces aligned against him and for the first time in the series, Sam Flint is ready to give up entirely. Enter one of the most intriguing characters I’ve encountered in frontier fiction: Jude Napoleon. This printer’s tramp (a typesetter who moves from one printer shop to the next) is true to both his names as he refers to himself as the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. He acts as Flint’s Field Marshal in the newspaper war and masterminds detailed tactics to achieve Flint’s overall strategy. And together, they do it all honestly and never stoop to the kinds of underhanded schemes of the competition. The road is bumpy to be sure and not all innocent bystanders emerge alive. It’s not a predictable plot line but worth it all the way to the end.
Most frontier or “western” fiction tends to revolve around gunfighters, cattle drives, etc. so it is refreshing to read this series about the fourth estate of the late 1800’s. A side benefit is my new found education in what it takes to actually gather news and turn it into a profitable newspaper in those days, including running a small press, selling advertising and subscriptions, and letting the power of the truth persuade the readers what the right course of action should be. Sam Flint is a great character, intriguing for his absolutely unassailable approach to equal justice for everybody and willing to put his life on the line time and again for his principles.
Even though I enjoyed reading these books very much, I am sort of glad this is the last one. I don’t think poor Sam Flint could survive another and this one end quite satisfactorily. I will instead turn to more books by this prolific author.
It’s the most difficult road that Sam Flint has had to traverse and that is really saying something considering the hurdles he has overcome in the previous two novels in the series. In addition to the despicably corrupt newspaper editor, there is also the owner of the biggest mines who thinks of himself as the overlord to the miners who work for him and whom he considers to be merely ants that are always replaceable. The sheriff is afraid to enforce the law on the powerful men in the town and the judge seems to act at the whims of the others. This power structure favors the businesses at the expense of the only taxed entities, the sporting houses. In other words, to enter this quagmire and hope to build an honest newspaper that can positively affect the town is a fool’s errand.
It isn’t long before Sam just can’t withstand the forces aligned against him and for the first time in the series, Sam Flint is ready to give up entirely. Enter one of the most intriguing characters I’ve encountered in frontier fiction: Jude Napoleon. This printer’s tramp (a typesetter who moves from one printer shop to the next) is true to both his names as he refers to himself as the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. He acts as Flint’s Field Marshal in the newspaper war and masterminds detailed tactics to achieve Flint’s overall strategy. And together, they do it all honestly and never stoop to the kinds of underhanded schemes of the competition. The road is bumpy to be sure and not all innocent bystanders emerge alive. It’s not a predictable plot line but worth it all the way to the end.
Most frontier or “western” fiction tends to revolve around gunfighters, cattle drives, etc. so it is refreshing to read this series about the fourth estate of the late 1800’s. A side benefit is my new found education in what it takes to actually gather news and turn it into a profitable newspaper in those days, including running a small press, selling advertising and subscriptions, and letting the power of the truth persuade the readers what the right course of action should be. Sam Flint is a great character, intriguing for his absolutely unassailable approach to equal justice for everybody and willing to put his life on the line time and again for his principles.
Even though I enjoyed reading these books very much, I am sort of glad this is the last one. I don’t think poor Sam Flint could survive another and this one end quite satisfactorily. I will instead turn to more books by this prolific author.
March 2, 2017
A historical story about a newspaper publisher setting up his newspaper office in a mining town out west. He finds out he is up against a town full of corrupt officials that doesn't want an honest newspaper published.
August 31, 2014
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...
More at my blog.
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...
More at my blog.
June 11, 2015
Wonderful story of settling the west, from a different perspective. Flint is a newspaper man. He happened to read the Silver City Democrat and found that he disliked it so violently that he decided to move to their town and start up a paper of his own. Silver City is run by a clique consisting of the mine owners, the newspaper, and the sheriff ... so Flint has some tough obstacles to get around, but with the aid of a gal named Chastity and another roving printer named Napoleon, it all works out in the end.
January 25, 2011
I've enjoyed this book.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews