On some level, the hero of David Heska Wanbli Weiden’s “Wisdom Corner” knows he’s too violent. But can he get that message from his bruised knuckles to his brain?

“I’d gotten in two fights in a week,” Virgil Wounded Horse tells us in the thriller. “I’d tried to handle both situations calmly, but each had turned violent. And I had to be honest with myself — that’s what I’d wanted."

“Wisdom Corner” is a throwback to hard-boiled thrillers of the mid-20th century in which short-tempered, punch-first/ask-questions-later antiheroes thought the only good interview was one that left the witness cowering in terror.

Virgil leaves plenty of carnage in his bloody wake in the taut “Wisdom Corner.” He’s trying to figure out who murdered his medicine man friend. A Native gang that’s trying to monopolize the reservation’s booze supply? An unscrupulous politician whose opponent happens to be Virgil’s girlfriend, Marie? A mysterious hacker whose efforts to uncover harm at Native American boarding schools are fueled by righteous anger? One of the creeps Virgil leaves behind after “questioning” them with his fists?

Several elements of “Wisdom Corner” recall last year’s “Big Chief,” by Mankato native Jon Hickey, including the charged run-up to a tribal election and the lingering effects of trauma that’s been passed down from Native generation to Native generation ever since colonists stole their land. But thriller fans will notice an even stronger kinship with bestsellers written by S.A. Cosby (“King of Ashes”), whose heroes also seek justice while questioning whether their violent tactics are just as troubling as those of the bad guys they’re trying to find/imprison/pummel.

Like Cosby’s books, “Wisdom Corner” moves like crazy, with Virgil pursuing leads throughout the southern half of South Dakota while also trying to protect his family from those gang members, who were on the receiving end of his punches in one of the book’s first scenes. Marie’s attempts to get Virgil to shape up may be working — he’s definitely not quite as violence-prone as he was in Weiden’s previous thriller, “Winter Counts.” His moments of self-reflection (“Ghosts of my enemies drifted before me, all the people I’d beaten, their cries and wails echoing in my head”) also suggest an interest in a future that’s less vigilante, more peacemaker.

That makes for a strong narrative spine in “Wisdom Corner,” but where the novel excels is in Weiden’s sure depiction of reservation life and tribal politics (he’s an enrolled citizen of South Dakota’s Sicangu Lakota Nation). Despite living much of his life on a reservation and being intimately attuned to what goes on there, even Virgil is unaware of some of his people’s history. The pieces of it that Weiden shares with us, including a passage about Native athletes’ crucial role in the early history of the sport of football, are eye-opening.

The more he learns about his history, the more Virgil seems to be at peace with who he is now. And who he could be in future Weiden novels.

Wisdom Corner

By: David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

Publisher: Ecco, 312 pages.

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