With his new novel, Saltspring Island poet and novelist Brian Brett has created a postmodern, Gulf Island-based, Buddhism-infused, eco-psycho-killer thriller. Coyote is at once leisurely paced and thrilling, thought-provoking and humorous, character-focussed and intellectually challenging.

Coyote begins with the arrival of Brian on Artemis Island, an imagined amalgam of a number of B.C.’s Gulf Islands. He’s searching for Charlie Baker, an eccentric back-to-the-lander who lives in a treehouse, and who Brian believes may be Coyote, an eco-terrorist responsible for a series of sabotages, fire-bombings, and explosions, presumed long dead in an action gone awry. Brian’s arrival is closely followed by the arrival of RCMP Inspector Janwar Singh, investigating the mysterious disappearance of a Vancouver environmentalist from a holistic healing centre. The novel incorporates elements of police procedurals, a departmental investigation, race and gender issues, and the hunt for two serial killers, all set against the bucolic island backdrop.

Coyote’s effective plot twists are resolved by a convincing ending. Brett’s postmodern techniques (such as multiple narrative viewpoints and intrusive meta-narrative voice) add to the narrative imbalance. Brett also convincingly evokes the Gulf Islands with closely detailed observations of the natural world and a population of ex-hippies, cottage crafters, dope growers, and renegade goats and peacocks. His characters, particularly Singh and the deceptively clever Charlie, are well drawn and convincing, while Brian remains a satisfying enigma who only gradually reveals his secrets.

Brett occasionally lapses into pedantic sermonizing, a mix of Buddhism and environmentalism drawn from Edward Abbey and Gary Snyder, that, while appropriate to the novel’s themes and characters, may tax many readers. These thought-provoking passages feel indulgent (and bear an uncomfortable similarity to the pious eco-writing of the early 1970s), but they can be easily skipped over.