Excellent. Art. Philosophy. Violence.

And fly fishing.

“Peter Heller is the poet laureate of the literary thriller.” —Michael Koryta

Painter is my second Heller book, I liked this one better than The Guide.

I’ll read more from this author. Original and surprising. Opposite of the formulaic and predictable books of Baldacci, for example.

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Jim Stegner is a troubled, brilliant artist.

He flees the art scene of Santa Fe to start fresh in the valleys of rural Colorado.

Here he spends his days painting and fly fishing, trying to find a way to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him.

But one afternoon, on a dirt road, Jim comes across a man beating a small horse, and a brutal encounter rips his quiet life wide open. …

PeterHeller.net

I recommend this book published 2011.

Though Peter May is award winning and very prolific, this is the first of his many books that I’ve read.

The Blackhouse is a suspense thriller, first novel of The Lewis Trilogy, written by the Scottish writer Peter May.

The action takes place mostly on the remote and weather-beaten Isle of Lewis off the coast of northern Scotland.

Detective Inspector Finlay Macleod (known as Fin), a native of the island, is sent from his Edinburgh police station to investigate the murder …

One unique thread is the annual guga hunt. Men from Fin’s village of Ness sail end of summer to the tiny rock island of Sula Sgeir. They harvest a maximum of 2,000 gannet chicks (known as gouge) from their nests. That’s been a tradition since well before 1549.

Very skillfully constructed.

Sophie is a mystery writer (like Jewell) who reluctantly moves to the country because her husband took a new job.

She finds a sign nailed to a nearby fence with an arrow and the words “Dig Here”.

She does. And it begins to unravel the mystery of a young couple that disappeared a year earlier.

Flashbacks take us back.

I would say the book could have been shorter. Jewell would be better with a more ruthless editor.

Still. Recommended.