****New York Times bestselling author Howard Blum expertly weaves
together three narratives to tell the true story of the 1897
Klondike Gold Rush.
It is the last decade of the 19th century. The Wild West has been tamed
and its fierce, independent and often violent larger-than-life
figures--gun-toting wanderers, trappers, prospectors, Indian fighters,
cowboys, and lawmen--are now victims of their own success. But then gold
is discovered in Alaska and the adjacent Canadian Klondike and a new
frontier suddenly looms: an immense unexplored territory filled with
frozen waterways, dark spruce forests, and towering mountains capped by
glistening layers of snow and ice.
In a true-life tale that rivets from the first page, we meet Charlie
Siringo, a top-hand sharp-shooting cowboy who becomes one of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency's shrewdest; George Carmack, a
California-born American Marine who's adopted by an Indian tribe, raises
a family with a Taglish squaw, and makes the discovery that starts off
the Yukon Gold Rush; and Jefferson Soapy Smith, a sly and inventive
conman who rules a vast criminal empire.
As we follow this trio's lives, we're led inexorably into a perplexing
mystery: a fortune in gold bars has somehow been stolen from the
fortress-like Treadwell Mine in Juneau, Alaska. Charlie Siringo
discovers that to run the thieves to ground, he must embark on a rugged
cross-territory odyssey that will lead him across frigid waters and
through a frozen wilderness to face down Soapy Smith and his gang of 300
cutthroats. Hanging in the balance: George Carmack's fortune in gold.
At once a compelling true-life mystery and an unforgettable portrait of
a time in America's history, The Floor of Heaven is also an
exhilarating tribute to the courage and undaunted spirit of the men and
women who helped shape America.
