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“Full of suspense…an
amazing real-life adventure story, peopled with characters that any novelist
would be proud to have invented: first-rate entertainment.”
— Michael Korda, New York Times bestselling author of Hero, With Wings Like Eagles, and Ike
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“Brings to life the frenzy of the Yukon Gold Rush that
opened Alaska, bringing with it fabulous wealth for a few, the violent
lawlessness of the lower Wild West, and a breed of charlatan that fiction could
not invent. From a virtual mother lode of unmined material, Blum casts a
narrative that both informs and entertains as he forges the image of the wild
days of the last American frontier.”
— William C. Davis, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Battle of Bull Run
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“Wonderfully original…Blum laces together a grand string
of adventures (all the more impressive for being true) that take us deep into
the glory hole and the transforming power of greed.”
— Pope Brock, New York Times bestselling author of Charlatan
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“Howard Blum has taken a whole handful of good yarns and
has woven them into a tapestry of adventure, cattle drives, manhunts, bonanzas,
greed, gunslinging, saloon brawls and heists, and of schemers and dreamers who
became legends in their time. A novelist could hardly make up such characters,
but these were real men. Blum has worked as hard as a sourdough prospector to
mine their memoirs, letters and scrapbooks, to trace their interwoven
biographies and write a vivid, amazingly plotted narrative that's like spun
gold.”
— James Alexander Thom, author of the national bestseller Follow the River
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“Dramatic and colorful with touches of humor and
poignancy, The Floor of Heaven has
the spark of a television miniseries and the depth of a novel. That Blum’s tale
of adventure is tall but true makes it all the more enjoyable, particularly
because its heartbeat is so keenly American.”
— Associated Press
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“Highly enjoyable…a narrative history set before, during
and just after the [Yukon gold] rush. Blum traces the lives of three storied men—a
prospector, a cowboy turned Pinkerton detective and a notorious conman—whose
fates intersected over a stash of gold…It must have been a daunting task
wrangling all these conflicting stories into a single, seamless tale, but you
never feel that effort on a single page of this unabashedly entertaining book.”
— Salon
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“True Grit meets Call of the
Wild. That’s the skinny on Howard Blum’s Floor of Heaven, a big sprawling book that pairs colorful cowboys
and ornery thieves with noble Indians and the kinds of hardworking prospectors
found in Jack London’s tales of the Yukon…Blum’s characters have undeniable
folksy charm and ‘grit.’
— San Francisco Chronicle
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“There is no doubt that all three of Mr. Blum’s main
subjects led fascinating lives…Mr. Blum skillfully intercuts [his story’s]
plotlines, building momentum toward his big finish…entertaining.”
— Wall Street Journal
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“Packed with larger-than-life characters straight out of
a John Ford western…a rich tale…entertaining.”
— American Heritage
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“In the tradition of great
history as great literature…highly recommended…readers will be richly rewarded
by Blum’s masterful use of a colorful cast of genuine historical characters set
in the majestic northwestern wilderness.”
— Library Journal (starred review)
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“Wildly compelling a
truly memorable frontier tale.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“A fascinating story…Detailing crimes perpetrated and
solved, relationships both happy and tragic, hardships unthinkable in the
modern age, and the cold, magical allure of Alaska and the Yukon, Blum captures
the spirit and mood of the last of the Old West. The final pages, especially,
are filled with drama and a strange yearning…a huge success.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“A tense, exciting tale filled with colorful characters.”
— Booklist
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“The Floor of
Heaven is a full-gallop epic of fortune-seeking and betrayal that leaves
you pondering the high price we pay for both domesticity and freedom.”
— Scott Zesch, author of The Captured
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“The best kind of
reading experience, where the reader is transported to another time and place
and is soon caught up in a glorious adventure…A great, untold story of daring
men involved in a dangerous and exciting enterprise: the taming of a lawless
land.”
— Jim Donovan, author of Custer and the Little Bighorn