Flintlock by Jason Manning







Good summer fun!

Originally published in 1994.

Flintlock is the frontier nickname of Nathaniel Jones, a deadeye shot on the Kentucky frontier. The book is ostensibly about Aaron Burr and his attempt to break the American West away from the rest of the United States in the early 1800s. For those of you not familiar with Burr, he was the former Vice President (Jefferson's first term) who killed America's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton (the guy on your $10 bill) in a duel. This ruined his political career and he was accused of conspiring to turn the US territory East of the Mississippi and west of the Appalachians into a personal dictatorship.
Aaron Burr
(1756-1836)


The book has a rather large prologue (almost 1/2 of the book) that concerns young Flintlock's exploits as a teen in the Revolutionary War on the Virginia/Kentucky frontier. To be honest, that is the only complaint that I have with the book - its back cover does not accurately describe its contents. It's a fun summertime book, a quick read with lots of action and lots of historical background thrown in. Is it a great work of fiction, able to stand with Melville and Hemingway? No, but it is a fun little book that does all that it was ever intended to do - entertain a lot and educate a little.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Flintlock.

Reviewed in 2004.

Comments

Popular posts over the last 30 days

BRIAN EPSTEIN: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

VICKSBURG, 1863 by Winston Groom

JOHN DENVER: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

BEAT the REAPER (audiobook) by Josh Bazell

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL by Kurt Vonnegut and Ryan North.

THE BIG EMPTY (Elvis Cole/Joe Pike #20) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

NPR AMERICAN CHRONICLES: WORLD WAR I (audiobook) by NPR

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell

Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West by Mark Steyn

Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots by Ken Ham and A. Charles Ware