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Richard A. Thompson

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Big Wheat: A Tale of Bindlestiffs and Blood Kindle Edition

by Richard A. Thompson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.8 34 ratings

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The summer of 1919 is over, and on the high prairie, a small army of men, women, and machines moves across the land, bringing in the wheat harvest. Custom threshers, steam engineers, bindlestiffs, cooks, camp followers, and hobos join the tide. Big Wheat is king as people gleefully embrace the gospels of progress and greed.

But with Big Wheat comes a serial killer who calls himself the Windmill Man. He believes he has a holy calling to water the newly plucked earth with blood. The mobile harvest provides an endless supply of ready victims. He has been killing for years now and intends to kill for many more.

A young man named Charlie Krueger also follows the harvest. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart and estranged from his drunkard father, he 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....

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Just after being jilted by Mabel Boysen, heartbroken Charlie Krueger confronts his mean drunk of a father and leaves home in North Dakota in 1919—but not before glimpsing a stranger covering up something in a harvested wheat field in the dark. When Mabel’s body is found days later in that field, Charlie is suspected of her murder. And the stranger, a deranged serial killer who calls himself the Windmill Man and is on a mission to avenge the rape of the land, seeks to eliminate Charlie, his sole witness after decades of murders. Not knowing he’s wanted by the law, Charlie hooks up with a threshing operation led by machinist Jim Avery, who takes care of his own and nurtures Charlie’s mechanical bent. Inevitably, the law and the Windmill Man both come after Charlie. The crime plot holds our interest, but, surprisingly, so does the material on threshing wheat in the post–World War I period, as machines were gradually replacing manual labor. Thompson’s first stand-alone, after two Herman Jackson mysteries, succeeds both as social history and blood-soaked suspense with a dollop of romance. --Michele Leber

Review

An evocative look at the hardships of farming, the intersection of progress with old-fashioned ways, and the loneliness of the Great Plains.

(Publishers Weekly)

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07VPKSRT3
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Poisoned Pen Press (June 30, 2012)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 30, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2004 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 258 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #3,153,309 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #5,689 in Organized Crime (Kindle Store)
- #5,718 in Serial Killers
- #6,358 in Historical Thrillers (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
3.8 34 ratings

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Richard A. Thompson

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Richard A. Thompson is a civil engineer who traded in his hard hat for a laptop and now spends his time writing mysteries and science fiction. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife of 48 years (as of 2011) and two neurotic cats. His debut novel, Fiddle Game, about a bail bondsman with a shady past, a priceless antique violin, and a band of modern urban Gypsies, was short-listed for a CWA Debut Dagger Award. His second novel in the series, Frag Box, was a finalist in the Minnesota Book Awards. Big Wheat is his third novel, and is a stand-alone historical. Read the first chapters of all three at www.fiddlegame.com.

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3.8 out of 5

34 global ratings

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tommyg

Real-life working knowledge

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2019

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My dad grew up in North Dakota shortly after this time period which allowed me a window into his challenging childhood and extended wheat-farming family. The story was captivating, informational, and enlightening.

One person found this helpful

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Dave Schwinghammer

Nostalgic mystery

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2011

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Having been raised on a farm in the early fifties, I got in on the tail end of the threshing era when neighbors would get together to bring in the harvest. Women would cook up a storm and little kids would be on cloud nine.

So in that sense BIG WHEAT is more nostalgia than mystery. Farmers still get together to crank up the big steam machines and do a mock harvest, although I expect they use real wheat.

Author Richard Thompson takes us back to 1919 and his main character, Charlie Krueger, is having romance and family problems. His girl Mabel Boysen tricks him into getting her pregnant so she can trap a man with land. His dad is a terrible bully who blames him for the death of his favorite son Rob in World War I. After a fight with the old man Charlie leaves home to join a traveling threshing crew. But before he leaves he catches a glimpse of a serial killer.

The serial killer, the Windmill man, only later realizes he needs to clean up all the loose ends of his bloody work and take care of the witness. The Windmill man is a mystical sort who is offering up blood to prevent a cataclysmic storm.

In short order Charlie goes to work for James Avery, a machinist who fixes the big steam machines and runs a sort of commune of stray characters called The Arc. Meanwhile the sheriff of Mercer County is after Charlie for the murder he witnessed as is the Windmill man.

The story is kind of hokey but put it with the North Dakota threshing setting and you've got an entertaining yarn.

2 people found this helpful

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Dutchmasters

Big Wheat a Big Winner

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2018

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The story really accelerated from very first page. I enjoyed the book especially researching the various types of steam engines, threshing machines, etc.

2 people found this helpful

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L.A. Schroeder

Neither history nor mystery.

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2012

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Big Wheat was a big disappointment. Historically and geographically there were many inaccuracies. Obviously the author had never been in the part of North Dakota he described. For one thing, it's rolling prairie, not flat. The harvest as he describe, would not have succeeded. There were a few good connections that matched the recollections of our grandparents; but the errors were too numerous to make a credible story. If the author intended it to be a mystery without accuracy of setting, it still came up short. By chapter two the outcome was very predictable, only more gory than I expected. I finished the book only because I was reading it for a book club, and I kept hoping it would get better.

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Moresby

Crap.

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2022

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Awful. Predictable nonsense. Pure hackery.

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2015

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Great Read!

One person found this helpful

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D. S. Bornus

Good Parts and Bad

Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2011

BIG WHEAT is an engaging read, however I think that it leaves a little bit wanting. While it is interesting to learn about the inner workings of a thrashing machine and its crew during harvest, social elements of the story do not ring quite true. Just about every woman Charlie meets seems to be a lusty babe, ready to drop her clothes and have sex on a moment's whim. Some women seem to choose their man by who has a nice plot of land, then resort to schemes and tricks (like getting pregnant by another man and asserting who is the father, or rushing to a conniving minister who is willing to marry a drunken couple "for real" on a stage to entertain a crowd.) Every lawman in the story is a callous brute, ready to beat and/or rape people who displease them, or even shoot them dead without provocation. Many of the farmers are hicks who'd cheat you as soon as look at you. I grew up in the farm country where this novel is set, and these elements just do not match up with what I know to be true of the society of previous generations.

Key characters in the story are underdeveloped and details not provided. How did Emily, with her English accent, come to be traveling with a wandering threshing caravan in the great plains of the US? What is really behind the "Windmill Man's" obsession with killing (anyone, in any manner, it seems) to "purify" the land? Why does the Windmill man not see the hypocrisy in his condemnation of the culture for mass-farming "big wheat" crops, and his zesty enjoyment of bakery treats? How is it that he can kill apparently dozens of people with no one noticing or raising an outcry, including a minister (who apparently has no congregation to notice when he has simply disappeared), and a county sheriff?

There were very good parts to this book. It had the makings of another "Edgar Sawtelle," it has that kind of feel. It was just rushed to print before being completely developed.

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