Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Guide by Peter Heller

The Guide by Peter Heller

The Guide

by Peter Heller

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Aug 2021, 272 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

The bestselling author of The River returns with a heart-racing thriller about a young man who, escaping his own grief, is hired by an elite fishing lodge in Colorado, where amid the natural beauty of sun-drenched streams and forests he uncovers a plot of shocking menace.

Kingfisher Lodge, nestled in a canyon on a mile and a half of the most pristine river water on the planet, is known by locals as "Billionaire's Mile" and is locked behind a heavy gate. Sandwiched between barbed wire and a meadow with a sign that reads "Don't Get Shot!" the resort boasts boutique fishing at its finest. Safe from viruses that have plagued America for years, Kingfisher offers a respite for wealthy clients. Now it also promises a second chance for Jack, a return to normalcy after a young life filled with loss. When he is assigned to guide a well-known singer, his only job is to rig her line, carry her gear, and steer her to the best trout he can find.

But then a human scream pierces the night, and Jack soon realizes that this idyllic fishing lodge may be merely a cover for a far more sinister operation. A novel as gripping as it is lyrical, as frightening as it is moving, The Guide is another masterpiece from Peter Heller.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Heller's lush descriptions of fishing and river country are matched with a riveting, surprising mystery...The novel's speculative approach to the lingering effects of Covid-19 is frightening in its subtlety and one of the book's special charms. Readers looking for a credible couple and a story of redemption will love this." - Publishers Weekly

"Fisherman's noir isn't a genre, but maybe it should be...This is an unconventional mystery, an unconventional romance, and an unconventional adventure, creepy and spiritual in equal measure...the long, descriptive passages create a vivid sense of place and action...By the time Jack and Alison encounter a young woman running down the road in a hospital gown...they're in too deep, and they're too curious, to quit the dangerous puzzle before them. You might feel the same. There's danger at the end of the line in this unconventional mystery." - Kirkus Reviews

"Peter Heller's riveting thriller is set in the American wilderness, but the threats gathering around Jack, the young fishing guide of the title, come from man, not nature...Unnerving...A chilling reminder of the dangers that might lie in wait for us all." - Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"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

This information about The Guide was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Yellow

Another captivating read
I have loved all of Peter Heller's books and this is no exception.
I did figure out the main mystery pretty early on in the book, but I still really enjoyed watching it spool out. The relationship between the main characters rivaled the greatest character in a Peter Heller novel: the land itself. I found their relationship to be moving and sincere. It’s a thriller with a sensitivity that is rare in any genre.

Roberta

Disappointing
The main character, Jack, is hired as a fishing guide at a luxurious fishing lodge in Colorado. He arrives with his own baggage and I don't mean a suitcase. He is traumatized by the death of his mother and his best friend and blames himself for their deaths. How this adds to the story, I don't know because there is very little character development of Jack or any of the other characters. The bad guys are bad and we never learn much about them.

Jack spends a week guiding a country western singer named Allison K who miraculously at the end of the book seems to be able to call in a squadron of helicopters to help save the day.

The women in the book are always described in sexist terms. Big surprise Allison and Jack are attracted to each other. Trite.

The "thriller" builds to such a ridiculous, unimaginative and implausible conclusion that I felt like throwing the book against the wall (or into the trashcan). Honesty I have no idea why the critics thought highly of this book.

The only redeeming quality and the only time the writing was any good was Heller's descriptions of fly-fishing. He clearly is himself a fly fisher and loves it. I found those passages beautifully written. I think he should do a book of essays about fly fishing.

Heller's book The River is better than this one.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Peter Heller Author Biography

Peter Heller is the national best-selling author of The River, Celine, The Painter, and The Dog Stars. The Painter was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the prestigious Reading the West Book Award, and The Dog Stars has been published in twenty-two languages to date. Heller is also the author of four nonfiction books, including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in poetry and fiction and lives in Denver, Colorado.

Link to Peter Heller's Website

Other books by Peter Heller at BookBrowse
  • The River jacket
  • The Painter jacket

7 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.