Big Wheat A Tale of Bindlestiffs and Blood (Paperback)
|Author: Richard A. Thompson|
From the Publisher:
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. Prosperous farmers proudly proclaim ?Rain follows the plow,? meaning that the bounty of the land will never be exhausted. Everywhere, people gleefully embrace the gospels of progress and greed. The threshing season is on.|
The culture of early 20th-century wheat harvesting in the Great Plains creates a unique backdrop (and at time narrative propulsion) for Richard A. Thompson's excellent mystery thriller. In addition to fighting the elements, his past, heartbreak, and the dangerous new machines that now aid the threshing, the young Charlie Krueger finds himself up against a serial killer with a religious fervor known as the Windmill Man.