The Wheat Field (Mysteries & Horror) by Steve Thayer Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $1.68 You Save: $5.82 (78%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Wheat Field (Mysteries & Horror)
Book Review: She must've been drunk
Summary: 2 Stars
Steve Thayer is primarily known for his stories set in St. Paul, Minnesota. The city becomes a character in the novels. He shows us the Cathedral, the Mississippi and its caves, the beautiful homes on Summit Ave. He takes us back to the depression when gangsters, such as Dillenger and the Barker gang, were given free reign in the city.In The WHEAT FIELD, Thayer moves the setting to the Wisconsin Dells, Kickapoo county. Again he uses the history of the Dells to provide texture for his novel. He mentions Joe McCarthy, who supposedly belonged to the gun club mentioned in the story, and Ed Gein, the murderous ghoul, who dug up corpses in the local graveyard and used their skin to upholster his furniture.
I had high hopes for this novel. It takes guts to make your main character a voyeur, and just a few pages in there's a lurid sex scene. Most of the writing books tell you to make your protagonist a likable character; and who likes peeping Toms? Just a bit on the plot. Two people are murdered in this wheat field in the midst of what looks like a crop circle. They're high school friends of Pliny Pennington, the deputy in charge of the murder investigation. He's in love with the female victim, Maggie Butler. We soon discover that two more of Pennington's high school friends, a senatorial candidate and his wife, were also involved. The evidence points towards a "snuff" film.
We don't really get to know any of these people, other than Pliny. Once more, those pesky book doctors insist that in a thriller there be less of an emphasis on character development, ignoring the danger that the reader just might not care what happens to these people. I also had a hard time with Thayer's choppy writing style. Very short sentences, even during those times when nothing much is happening. There's also implausibility galore. At the end, the setting shifts to Nantucket where we meet a ghost and a bunch of CIA types with a connection to the impending Kennedy assassination. In the acknowledgments, Thayer thanks his agent, the driving force behind the novel. She must've been drunk.
Book Review: Good read, lots of porn....
Summary: 4 Stars
THE WHEAT FIELD by Steve Thayer is not the type of mystery I ordinarily read. I usually prefer women writers and/or mysteries set in England or American crime stories with hard-boiled female heros like Kay Scarpetta or Stephanie Plum. I was drawn to Thayer's book because the setting is Wisconsin--a state I have known and loved all my life. I think Thayer handled his descriptions of various places in Wisconsin pretty well. Thayer's story is a compelling tale I read in a half day. This is the kind of book you take on a long plane flight or to the beach. Thayer is an excellent writer whose style is reminiscient of Hemingway's (not a particular favorite of mine but he wrote well). More than one aspect of THE WHEAT FIELD reminded me of THE SUN ALSO RISES.
Thayer's characterization of Pliny Pennington is believable. Pliny seems to be a cross between Forrest Gump and Micky Spillane and although there was a time when I would not have belived such a fellow could exist I now know there are innocents who are worldly-wise. Besides, Pliny the protagonist is relating the events in this story years later. Some of the dumb things he did as a younger man he would not have done in later life after he "wized" up.
Pliny is the Deputy Sherif of Kickapoo County, and although this book has been characterized as a "police procedural" it is not. There are NO forensics. Even though Pliny is a law enforcement officer, I would characterize him as more akin to the 1950s detective--you know the guy who was always in some kind of trouble because he trusted untrustworthy adversaries and was not above breaking the law himself. The other characters in this novel are shallowly drawn and generally as unlikable as the characters in a Mickey Spillane novel.
Thayer includes a good deal of pornography. He may have thought it was necessary for the plot, but his graphic descriptions seem a bit gratuitous at times. He introduces a character who knows a bit about voyeurism (a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin), a sort of "profiler" Pliny says. His unraveling of the plot stretches credibility at times. I figured out who the murderer was in the early part of the book. I think I mostly stuck with the book because it is a good read and I had to see what became of Pliny. This book will not appeal to Republicans.
Book Review: MASTERFUL TALE OF POLITICAL MAYHEM AND MURDER
Summary: 5 Stars
Murder and politics equal excitement, which is precisely what Steve Thayer generously serves in his fifth novel, "The Wheat Field."It is 1960, the year of Nixon's presidential campaign, and the setting is supposedly serene Kickapoo Falls, Wisconsin. Serenity isn't in the air or, for that matter, in the wheat field where the naked bodies of Maggie and Michael Butler are found by a local farmer. They both have been shot - is it a murder/suicide?
Deputy Pliny Pennington, who has been in love with the once gorgeous Maggie since high school days, doesn't think so. Questions abound, such as the condition of the field. The wheat has been evenly pressed down in a circle around the bodies with no evidence of tire or foot tracks. Stranger yet is the fact that there is no clothing nearby, yet both bodies apparently left this world as they came into it.
Sheriff Fats soon arrives on the scene along with Trooper Russ Hoffmeyer who confides that he was once invited to join a menage a trois with Maggie and Michael. While Pliny is chagrined to hear that there are even more shocking revelations in the offing. Some of these dangerous secrets involve the most prominent citizens in Kickapoo Falls.
Thayer masterfully unravels his tale against a backdrop of Wisconsin politics and personal foibles.
- Gail Cooke
Book Review: excellent historical police procedural
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1960, Kickapoo Falls, Wisconsin is a small bucolic town with a comparatively small-sized small sheriff's department to match the low crime rate. Deputy Pennington reveres his boss Sheriff Fats, the man who hired him, trained him and believed in him ever since he was brought on board just after World War II. The job is Pennington's whole life although the ex military sniper is in love with Maggie Butler who is married to Michael.Pennington feels a deep rage when he comes across Michael and Maggie dead and nude in Farmer Gutterson's wheat fields. The sheriff wants to call it a murder-suicide but his deputy knows instinctively it's a double homicide and goes about gathering evidence, which leads him to one of the town's most powerful citizens, a man running for the US Senate seat. Before this case is over or he is dead, Pennington will be betrayed, shot at and imprisoned by the elite infrastructure.
Steve Thayer, author of one of this reviewer's favorite thrillers (see THE WEATHERMAN), has written another exciting work that stars a flawed and brooding hero who captures the attention of the audience from the very first page. The historical police procedural is cleverly designed to bring out the era yet provide an exciting who-done-it investigation. Readers will hope that there will be more works staring this protagonist because he is atypical law enforcement official.
Harriet Klausner