The River

"They'd been smelling smoke for days." So opens Heller's fourth novel (after Celine), foretelling a disastrous outcome for what begins as a leisurely canoe trip by best friends Jack and Wynn. Experienced wilderness instructors, they paddle through creeks, white water, and a river in northern Ontario and soon encounter a creepy pair of drunk campers, whom they try to warn about the oncoming wildfire. When they hear a couple arguing at another campsite, they decide not to interfere, but the husband, Pierre, later arrives at their campsite disoriented and disheveled because wife Maia has disappeared into the woods after their argument and never returned. When Jack and Wynn travel back upstream to search for her, they find her barely alive, but how was she injured? The drunk campers? Pierre? A bear? Jack and Wynn find further trouble when they return to their campsite, and the two men are tested beyond endurance, with tragic results.