David Guterson

A retired heart surgeon, recently widowed, does not wish to confront his terminal colon cancer. He decides to go on a last hunt in his home state of Washington.

When two boys--John William Barry and Neil Countryman-- meet in 1972 at age sixteen, they're brought together by what they have in common: a fierce intensity and a love of the outdoors that takes them, together and often, into Washington's remote backcountry, where they must rely on their wits--and each other--to survive. Soon after graduating from college, Neil sets out on a path that will lead him toward a life as a devoted schoolteacher and family...

"A provocative new novel from the best-selling author of Snow Falling on Cedars--a moving father-son story that is also a taut courtroom drama and a bold examination of privilege, power, and how to live a meaningful life. In a small rural town outside Seattle, Joanna, an Ethiopian girl adopted by a white fundamentalist Christian family, is found dead of hypothermia in her own backyard--setting in motion a gripping journey into the complexities of...

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award ▪ American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award
"Haunting....A whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence and at the same time a mystery, something altogether richer and deeper."—Los Angeles Times
San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local...