While exploring the rugged landscape of Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim, Amanda Doucette is drawn to a reclusive old artist known only as Luke, who lives off the grid on a remote island. His vivid paintings hint at a traumatic secret from his past that brings to mind her own struggles with PTSD, and she begins to bond with him.
Great atmosphere and investment in the ragged natural world of Northwestern Vancouver Island. As many eccentric characters as live in three Pines, but Fradkin’s Amanda Doucette novels take us all across Canada.
The mystery is as complex as I have come to expect from a Fradkin novel. Just when you think you know what’s going on, a new twist arises that you realize has been foreshadowed all along, tucked almost invisibly between the local scenery and First Nations lore.
There’s a moment where Amanda blurts out something that she would be better keeping quiet about, and it’s unmotivated, or at least unexplained, what changed her tactic of keeping quiet to suddenly blowing her cover. At one point there's a scene that might be seen as white savior-ism, but otherwise the book is respectful of the area’s First Nations people and the natural environment they protect against the double onslaught of tourism and industry.
Themes include PTSD, art as therapy, police handling of mental illness, tourism in wilderness areas, Vietnam era draft dodgers and deserters who set up communes on Vancouver Island and smaller area islands during and after the Summer of Love.
Side note: there's often confusion about what constitutes a trained service dog versus an emotional support dog, so you may be a bit confused by how Amanda's dog acts and interacts. For greater clarity, check out this link from the American Kennel Association or this one pertaining to Canada
A bit of local knowledge if you're planning to visit: anybody
flying from Vancouver to reach the West shore of Vancouver Island would
not book Vancouver to Victoria and then drive. Booking Vancouver to
Nanaimo cuts 3+ hours off the drive and uncounted time hanging around
waiting rooms in airports. Better still, for not much more money & a
LOT faster trip, check for a regional float plane service straight
over to Tofino. There are frequent options for much of the year, and private charter flights available as well.
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