- Paperback: 252 pages
- Publisher: Infinity Pub (Nov 14 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0741450313
- ISBN-13: 978-0741450319
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.7 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Penzler Pick, February 2002: A book from Steve Thayer is always worth the wait. He has set three of them--The Weatherman, Saint Mudd, and Silent Snow--in the Minneapolis area and has repeated several of his characters. But in The Wheat Field he introduces a new cast of characters and moves the action to Kickapoo Falls, Wisconsin.
The narrator is Deputy Pennington, who takes us back to the year 1960 and the wheat field murders. Pennington has been in love with Maggie since they were in school together, but Maggie fell in love with Michael Butler and married him, so it is a shock to everyone when Michael and Maggie are found together, shot to death in that wheat field. At first glance it would appear to be a murder-suicide. Michael has been shot between the legs and Maggie's face has been shot off. The murder weapon is lying next to Maggie's outstretched hand, and the wheat around the bodies has been pressed down in a perfect circle with no shoe or car marks going in or out of that circle.
But there are some odd things about the murder scene, even apart from that perfect circle of wheat. Neither Michael nor Maggie is wearing clothes, yet there are no clothes on the ground. The only clue is the butt of a Lucky Strike lying near the bodies and three perfect holes in the flattened wheat. In addition, Maggie is wearing her wedding ring but not the class ring she always wore.
Except for the farmer who finds the body on his land, Deputy Pennington is the first to arrive on the scene. Is this, he wonders, sexual, and did somebody stand by and watch? Soon Sheriff Fats and Trooper Russ Hoffmeyer join him. Hoffmeyer soon admits to Pennington that he was once invited to join Michael and Maggie in a threesome--which he did, the whole episode being filmed. Pennington admits to some jealousy that he was never invited, and it isn't long, of course, before he becomes the major suspect in the double homicide and is arrested.
In the background of the story is the 1960 presidential campaign (most of the good folks of Kickapoo Falls are solidly behind Richard Nixon, though Deputy Pennington, before his arrest, has the rare chance for a short conversation with John F. Kennedy when he comes through town). Before the end of the story we will have learned a good deal about Wisconsin politics and the private sexual quirks of many of its fine, upstanding citizens.
Steve Thayer has produced here another tour de force of suspenseful and shocking storytelling that puts him in the first rank of today's crime novelists. --Otto Penzler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Shockwaves rock a 1960s small town when the grisly shotgun murder of two leading citizens sets the town's deputy sheriff against the sheriff and the politically powerful Gunn Club set. Deputy Pliny Pennington has carried a torch for Maggie Butler since their Kickapoo Falls, Wis., high school days, though she scornfully rejected him in favor of boys higher up the social ladder. When she is found in the middle of a wheat field with her face blown off beside her dead husband, Michael, Pliney is assigned the case and is promptly targeted by sinister forces intent on framing him for the murders. Shaken by the killings, a state cop admits to joining Maggie and Michael in sex games; Senate candidate Webster Sprague and his wife, Caren, were involved, too. Events get complex when Caren, who's seemingly run away with lots of Webster's money, calls Pliny long distance and feeds him clues that lead to sex film tapes giving leverage over Webster and perhaps revealing the killer in the wheat field. But just as Pliny gets close to a solution, he finds himself set up to take the fall for an even more heinous crime than the double murder, one linked to the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy presidential race. Though the political connection is less than credible, Thayer has a knack for building tension and defining place, and his smalltown sinners are all too believable. The spectacular ending is only slightly marred by the questionable plot device that gets Pliny there. Agent, Elaine Koster.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
The way a thriller should be!,
By
This review is from: Wheat Field (Paperback)
You'd expect thrillers of this caliber from more well-established authors, such as Stephen Hunter or Nelson DeMille. However, Steve Thayer--who I'd never heard of until I picked up this book--unleashes upon the world a thriller as good as they get!Kickapoo Falls, Wisconsin, located in the beautiful Dells region. The year is 1960, a tumultuous year that revolved around two men: John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. In Kickapoo Falls, however, something else has come up. Two bodies, naked, gruesomely murdered, found in a crop circle in the middle of a wheat field. No witnesses--at least none who aren't implicated. Deputy Pliny Pennington identifies one of the bodies as Maggie Butler--a former childhood friend, and the girl he'd been lusting after for most of his life. It's no secret that Pennington wanted Maggie, and she wouldn't have him. In fact, now the town's beginning to think Pennington had something to do with it--except, of course, for the people who know the truth. For Maggie's death is just a small part in a conspiracy reaching further than Pennington could have ever dreamed. Now, using the skills gained by a stint as a military sniper and former deer hunter, Pennington is about to face the ultimate test of survival, as he races against enemies, shady characters in suits, former friends--and himself. Steve Thayer's writing is brisk and clear. He sidesteps from the plot every now in then, but only to give you a better insight into who Pliny Pennington really is--and make you wonder if you can trust his narration. "The Wheat Field" is a novel of sex, violence, and the quest for the truth--no matter how much it may hurt.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A stellar story,
By
This review is from: Wheat Field (Hardcover)
If I were sucessful writing I would hope to be half a good as Mr. Thayer. The twists, turns, and level ground of his story keeps your mind speeding all the time. He ties in love, hate,politics, small town USA and about everything else you can think of. I will look forward to reading more of his work and could assure all if it is even close to this book in readability it would be a great success.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pseudonymous Straub,
By Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Wheat Field (Paperback)
If Peter Straub didn't write this novel pseudonymously, then Steve Thayer has studied the man's writings and imitated them perfectly. All the standard Straub elements are here: the Wisconsin setting, the obsessed and flawed hero besieged by numerous secret enemies, political intrigue, and a mysteriously vanished former love-interest femme fatale.Whenever you think you've got this one figured out, the author throws an ingenious twist your way. It begins with a double-barrelled shotgun blast, ends in thunder, lightning and flame, and traces a labyrinthine trail in-between of corrupt politicians and police, menacing secret societies, setups and double-crosses, frame-ups, cover-ups, mysterious late-night phone calls, contacts of dubious loyalties, hidden agendas, jealousy, greed, and every film noir element imaginable. The most brilliant aspect of this lightning-fast, multiply-layered page-turner is its own narrator, Deputy Detective Pliny Pennington, a man who - all the way to the closing chapter - the reader can't ever quite be sure of. Pliny has a checkered past, which includes obsessive voyeurism, stalking, and even one plain, old-fashioned, cold-blooded murder. Is he a good guy, or a bad guy? Or just an average guy, a basic shade of gray with stronger than usual black and white highlights? The novel is brilliantly plotted and constructed, and holds the reader's interest in a constantly tightening vise that never lets go. If you've never read Peter Straub, you'll get a great sample of his work in Thayer's The Wheat Field. If you have read Straub, you'll love this book more than you could imagine. If you don't know and never care to find out who Peter Straub is, you'll still find this an incredibly thrilling and surprisingly delightful read. Don't miss it. It's great.
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