The Guide

Extraordinary: a unique blend of thriller, post-Covid dystopia and paean to the healing properties of nature. * Guardian *Exceptionally good… A frighteningly plausible nightmare. * OBSERVER, Thriller of the month *

Peter Heller’s thrillers unfurl like campfire yarns.

* New York Times *Moves inexorably from natural elegy to a fast-paced and page-turning what-the-hell-is-going-on? Shades of nativist anti-cosmopolitanism, but first-rate. * The Critic *

An ever so subtly dystopian wilderness noir that speculates on the horrors of a post-pandemic society.

* USA Today *

Riveting… A chilling reminder of the dangers that might lie in wait for us all.

* Minneapolis Star Tribune *

A modern master of the wilderness thriller.

* Crime Reads *

The Guide is a glorious getaway in every sense, a wild wilderness trip as well as a suspenseful journey to solve a chilling mystery.

* BookPage *Peter Heller is the poet laureate of the literary thriller, and The Guide offers further proof for the case. Powered by Heller’s trademark prose, which alternately thunders and eddies like his beloved western rivers, this sinister and soulful story unfurls so skillfully that it’s easy to ignore all the layers beneath-but you shouldn’t. Heller writes about the eternal questions and the exquisite details, and he knows the places where they intersect in the human heart and the natural world. * Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD *

PRAISE FOR PETER HELLER AND THE RIVER‘Glorious prose and razor-sharp tension’ Observer Thrillers of the Year‘Utter joy… A suspenseful tale told with glorious drama and lyrical flair’ Denise Mina, New York Times‘Urgent, visceral writing - I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough’ Clare Mackintosh ‘Lyrical and action-packed by turns’ Guardian ‘A must read’ Daily Express

PETER HELLER is the award-winning author of THE DOG STARS, a New York Times bestseller and a Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle and Atlantic Book of the Year, and THE RIVER, an Observer Thriller of the Year.

Born and raised in New York, he has travelled the world as an expedition kayaker, writing about challenging descents in the Pamirs, the Tien Shan mountains, the Caucuses, Central America and Peru.

He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received an MFA in fiction and poetry, and won a Michener fellowship for his epic poem ‘The Psalms of Malvine’.