Vintage Contemporaries, 272 pages, paperback, $16.00

This is a gripping wilderness thriller with a well-devised plot, and Peter Heller’s first-hand knowledge of the outdoors and paddling adds to the vividness and reality.

The writing style tends to be clunky in parts, and I could do without the repetition of the Skoal™ product placement (seriously, “dip” or “snuff” could have just as easily worked — or maybe just omit the blue-collar stereotypes that add nothing to what are pretty well-developed characters), but those issues aside, this is a good read and I didn’t want to put it down once I got going.