The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier & the Yukon Gold Rush

A solid fun tale of Yukon adventure. The structure is slightly odd; the author follows three different men of very different temperament on different paths. But in the intersection it paints a broader story of Western and Yukon life, and it works. The author has a very deft hand with telling a gripping tale; as he notes, a highwire act since he's also trying to tell a true historical story. Which I assume he mostly succeeds in doing, even if his addition of extra color detail is a bit eyebrow raising at times. Does he really know what a character ate for dinner on some specific night? Maybe so, if he's working off a diary, and it's not the kind of story that requires footnotes. But there's a lot of details like that and sometimes it made me slightly skeptical.

Anyway, good story. Now I want to read a second story of the same time and place but a more sober story of ordinary people, not the gunslingers and prospectors. Also I'd love to read a woman's perspective in that time and place. The "good time gals" in this story are just furniture, which I'm guessing is a limitation of the author's source material. I bet they have good stories too.