Deliverance - James Dickey (First UK edition)

Four men embark on a canoe-trip down a wild section of river in the heartland of America's South, it is scheduled to last three days. The quartet consists, with one exception, of seemingly average suburban Americans; a mutual funds salesman, a supervisor in a soft-drink company, and a successful art director in a consulting firm who is the book's narrator. 

For them, the expedition represents a break in the domestic routine, a chance of adventure with a few real risks, and the last opportunity to see a beautiful valley, still virtually off the map, before the river coursing through it is dammed up. But the fourth member of the party, the obvious leader, is something different. He is a man obsessed by the desire to pit himself against nature, an expert canoeist and a champion archer.

The trip starts unadventurously enough. But, on the morning of the second day, two men step out of the wood, one of them trailing a shotgun by the barrel. This is the prelude to a vicious and horrifying attack, and the almost idyllic calm shatters abruptly. the fight for survival becomes paramount. And the odds are appalling for not only are there men intent on murder ever-present just beyond the trees, but the treacherous river suddenly becomes a graveyard for those without the strength or the luck to defy it. It is the narrator himself, forced to assume the leadership and to pursue a dangerous multiple deception, who must summon up all his resources to try to achieve deliverance.

James Dickey's book is that rare event, a novel of adventure which is superbly written and constructed. He builds up the tension to a nerve-shattering crescendo and invests his characters with total and intricate life, as they react to each blood-chilling dilemma and each new catastrophe. Deliverance is an overpowering story of violence and inner discovery which is destined to becomes a classic.