Big Wheat, Richard A. Thompson
Big Wheat, Richard A. Thompson
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Big Wheat
A Tale of Bindlestiffs and Blood

Author: Richard A. Thompson

Narrator: Kevin Kenerly

Unabridged: 7 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/04/2011

Synopsis

The summer of 1919 is now over, and on the high prairie, a small army of men, women, and machines moves across the land, harvesting the wheat. Custom threshers, steam engineers, bindle stiffs, cooks, camp followers, and hobos join the tide. Prosperous farmers proudly proclaim Rain follows the plow, meaning that the bounty of the land will never be exhausted. Wheat is king as people gleefully embrace the gospels of bounty and progress. But with the wheat comes a serial killer who calls himself the Windmill Man and who believes he has a holy calling to water the newly plucked earth with blood. For him, the mobile harvest provides a targetrich environment, an endless supply of ready victims. He has been killing for years now and intends to kill for many more. Who could stop him? Nobody even knows he exists.A young man named Charlie Krueger also follows the harvest. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart and estranged from his drunkard father, Charlie hopes to find a new life as a steam engineer. But in a newly harvested field in the nearly black Dakota night, he has come upon a strange man digging a grave. And in that moment, Charlie becomes the only person who has seen the face of a killer, the only person who can stop himif he lives long enough. The sheriff is after Charlie for murdering the Windmill Mans latest victim, and the Windmill man has learned his name and has begun to track Charlie. A Poisoned Pen Press Mystery

About Richard A. Thompson

Richard A. Thompson is a former civil engineer and construction manager who traded his hard hat for a laptop and now writes full time. He plays tennis four days a week and builds museum-quality model ships.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carl on December 21, 2013

World War I is done and Charlie Krueger’s older brother is never coming home. Charlie, his sister and their mother must cope with an increasingly abusive drunken father and husband. The summer of 1919 wanes and vast acreages of the Middle West prairies are thick with ripening grain. Up the long reac......more

Goodreads review by Eric_W on January 18, 2011

This is a wonderful book. It has the evil banker, the corrupt sheriff, the camaraderie of outcasts, a manic killer, and a nice little love story and the vast plains of North Dakota and Montana. I love historical novels that portray an era with lots of detail. That this book was also a mystery was ju......more

Goodreads review by Lou on October 27, 2011

Take a historical mystery, add a serial killer, then set the book on the American prairies in 1919. That’s what Richard Thompson has done in this superb novel. Not only is his research jaw-dropping, the book is a real page-turner. Epic timing helps, too. Farmers have been jubilant about the skyrocke......more

Goodreads review by John on January 31, 2020

Big Wheat struck a special chord for me. First, it is a 'coming-of-age' story based after WWI in the prairie lands of the MidWest. Second, it emphasizes the self-reliance, loss, toughness and resiliency of the people that inhabit the prairie lands in these times. Third, Mr. Thompson uses past and th......more

Goodreads review by Gina on January 09, 2018

I really enjoyed this book. Set at the turn of the industrial revolution, it had interesting characters and plot twists. The reason I learned about this book was from sitting next to the author's wife on a plane years ago, telling her I enjoy dabble in writing and then she told me about her husband......more

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