The summer of 1919 is now over, and on the high prairie, a small army of men, women, and machines moves across the land, harvesting the wheat. Custom threshers, steam engineers, bindle stiffs, 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. Wheat is king as people gleefully embrace the gospels of bounty and progress.

But with the wheat comes a serial killer who calls himself the Windmill Man and who believes he has a holy calling to water the newly plucked earth with blood. For him, the mobile harvest provides a target-rich environment, an endless supply of ready victims. He has been killing for years now and intends to kill for many more. Who could stop him? Nobody even knows he exists.

A young man named Charlie Krueger also follows the harvest. Jilted by his childhood sweetheart and estranged from his drunkard father, Charlie 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, the only person who can stop him–if he lives long enough. The sheriff is after Charlie for murdering the Windmill Man’s latest victim, and the Windmill Man has learned Charlie’s name and is now tracking him as well.

Herman Jackson has chosen St. Paul as his place of permanent exile from Detroit, where his former life as a bookie got too hot to hold. Now he leads a respectable life as a bail bondsman, while looking over his shoulder.

When a young woman leaves him an antique violin as security for her brother’s bail bond, it’s really the beginning of an elaborate con game. The game is barely underway when the young woman is murdered and, for reasons that make no sense, the police say Herman is the prime suspect—that is, unless he gives them the violin “as evidence.”

Jackson can’t afford to be a suspect even for jaywalking, but neither is he going to give in to extortion. Soon he’s on the run, trying to solve the murder while pursued by cops and a band of Gypsies. Suddenly, life back in Detroit doesn’t look so bad after all.

Jackson doesn’t admit he’s from Detroit, much less that he used to run a bookie operation there. His bail-bond business in St. Paul was much safer. And if Charlie Victor wasn’t his best client, he was at least a steady one, paying his bonding fee out of a secret stash he called his frag box.

Then Charlie is beaten to death on a public street in broad daylight. Just as bizarre and unexpected is the fact that he has named Jackson as his sole heir. Jackson wants justice for Charlie, who had become something of a friend. But with plenty of money problems of his own, he also wants the box of cash.

Unfortunately, Charlie’s killers want it, too, and the race is on. But every step closer to Charlie’s frag box peels away another layer of protection and another set of lies Jackson has told, including the ones he told himself.