Richard S. Wheeler's 1998 novel "Flint's Truth" is the second part of a trilogy about Sam Flint, an itinerant newspaperman who moves from one town in the Old West to another, publishing a paper until he eventually gets run out of town for reporting what someone doesn't want reported.

When he arrives in Oro Blanco, a mining town in New Mexico Territory, he doesn't expect to be staying very long. He's not even sure he'll be living very long. The town is sharply divided, quite literally. On one side of the river are the Mexicans, who were there first. On the other side are those who arrived after gold was discovered and who want the Mexicans and their claims on the land and the gold to disappear.

Mason Weed runs the mine and, therefore, runs the town, handpicking the mayor, the marshal and everyone else in power. He is committed to progress for Oro Blanco, and he is convinced progress does not require either Mexicans or a newspaper that tells the truth.

Flint's only employee is Libby Madigan, a young girl who supports herself and her dying mother by selling wildflowers on the street. Flint puts her to work selling papers and, eventually, helping with the printing. She becomes a key character, an object lesson showing just how far Weed is willing to go in pursuit of his own vision of progress.

Once again in "Flint's Truth," Wheeler shows you don't need gunfights or train robberies to make an exciting western novel. ( )