Author Thomas Boyd is best known for the novel "Through the Wheat" that has long been considered the greatest American novel of World War I ever written. Boyd was a Marine in WWI, seeing a great deal of fighting action, and was deeply influenced by what he went through on the battlefield. Later, he wrote for newspapers, and while working in a bookstore and writing the literary section for the local newspaper in St. Paul, Minnesota, was befriended by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who put him in contact with his own famous editor, Maxwell Perkins. As a result, Boyd published several books with Scribners, all edited by Perkins, including "The Dark Cloud," originally published in 1924. "The Dark Cloud" is the first of Boyd’s several historical novels; it tells the story of a British scout in Indian territory during the American Revolution. The "western" frontier of America of that time, which was Ohio, was the setting for many of Boyd’s works. He was fascinated by the moral issues facing everyday people in times of strife and disconnectedness, and without fanfare takes the reader directly into the daily lives of individuals trying to find their way through the storms of history. His strong feelings for the average person facing tremendous challenges gives strength to the story and the characters who live it.
