Sweet Thunder

Morrie Morgan is back, accompanied by our favorite loopy characters from Doig's acclaimed Whistling Season and Work Song. It's 1920, and after a whirlwind honeymoon, Morrie and wife, Grace, return to Butte, MT, where despotic power resides under one mighty thumb, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. Morrie and Grace start life in an outsized mansion, thanks to their benefactor and new boarder Samuel Sandison, cattle king, vigilante, and city librarian. To pay for the upkeep, Morrie begins working for a start-up newspaper, Thunder, backed by Jared Evans, leader of the mine workers and now a state senator. Writing salty, hard-nosed editorials, Morrie wages battle on behalf of the miners for fair wages and safe working conditions with the rival Post, Anaconda's mouthpiece. But big trouble follows Morrie. He's mistaken for the local bootlegger, the Chicago gambling mob sends a thug to shoot him, he's up against a muckraking journalist imported from Chicago by the Post, and his beloved Grace leaves him when she discovers his Chicago past. But Morrie remains steadfast in his mission.