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A thriller that’s beautifully written and carefully told is a rare thing. “Man in the Woods,” by Scott Spencer, is that impossible-to-find read that satisfies on multiples levels.

“Will he get away with it?” drives this story peopled by richly drawn, complex characters.

Paul Phillips is a high-priced carpenter whose expertise in restoring old homes put him in the arms of Kate Ellis, a divorcee, smart and witty, mother of young Ruby, best-selling author of a memoir recounting her journey, with God, away from alcohol.

This is the first place that’s felt like home for Paul since he was a boy. Paul is deeply in love with Kate, kind to Ruby and welcoming to his sister Annabelle, who moved to the same Hudson River town.

On his way home from a frustrating day in Manhattan, Paul stops at a state park to clear his head. Walking in the woods, he comes upon a man beating his dog. When the man won’t stop, Paul and he fight to the death. He kills the man.

Eventually, Paul arrives home with the dog he names Shep. Along the way he bashes his truck into a pole to provide reason for his cuts and bruises. Obsessively, he checks media and web sites for news of the death. Nothing. Days go by. How could a man be wiped from this earth with no one noticing, no one caring? “Was there no one out there to come forward and say, Where’s my husband, where is my father, where is my lover, where is the man who worked for me, where is the guy at the next desk, where is my buddy I went to the track with every July, or played cards with, or jogged with, where is the grumpy bastard with the good-looking brown dog?”

Someone cares: not for the man killed but for the dog he’d stolen. Also a Yonkers detective who believes in justice.

Paul can’t bear the weight of his crime and confesses to Kate. Fearing his loss, their household suffers. Poor Ruby acts out in alarming ways, crab walking and chanting curses. Kate loses her faith — doubly alarming because telling her story is her sole source of income. She’s a fraud if she continues, she’s broke if she stops.

The ending of this book left me bereft. It’s not until the very last sentence you get a sense of Paul’s fate, and understand the heartbreak he’ll leave in his wake.