Big Wheat

October 4, 2010
The advent of the threshing machine, which changed farming by making it easier and more profitable to harvest wheat, provides the backdrop for Thompson's accomplished stand-alone, set in 1919 on the Great Plains. As bands of workers and machines roam from farm to farm, bringing in the crops and ushering in the era of Big Wheat, Charlie Krueger finds his real home and an affinity for fixing machinery when he joins such a group. Having left his family farm and abusive father, Charlie is unaware that back home he's accused of killing the girlfriend who jilted him and that he's stalked by her murderer, a serial killer who's been following crop workers for years. Thompson (Frag Box) mixes elements of the western with a well-devised mystery plot for an evocative look at the hardships of farming, the intersection of progress with old-fashioned ways, and the loneliness of the Great Plains.

October 15, 2010

Somewhere in the wheat-happy Dakotas, a young man on the run from his own demons is stalked by a serial killer.

Charlie Krueger, beset as usual by the unregenerate drunk who happens to be his father, snaps at last, sticks a knife in the back of a molesting hand and takes off. He's pursued, not by the ranting, infuriated father he's pleased to note he no longer fears, and whose pursuit he half expects, but by an iniquitous embodiment of evil who calls himself the Windmill Man. Charlie knows too much, thinks his pursuer, and must be eliminated. Actually, the Windmill Man is wrong about what Charlie knows, but for him such niceties have long since become irrelevant. Only the mission matters, and besides, he's grown attached to killing. In 1919, wheat rules throughout the heartland—hot markets, big prices—so a young man with a feeling for machinery has a lot going for him. Charlie qualifies: "Machines spoke to him. They told him all their problems." In short order, he finds employment, new friends and a tough-minded, tender-hearted woman to love. What he doesn't find, until it's almost too late, is a way to cope with a relentless, remorseless madman convinced that blood-soaked earth is a gift to God.

Another good story from Thompson (Frag Box, 2009, etc.). The plotting is deft, and young Charlie is irresistible.

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