Blood Meridian...

This book is something special. Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is easily the best book I've read all year and quite possibly one of the best ever.

Cormac McCarthy is something of an enigma, having only ever given one interview and choosing to write in a style that includes no speech marks. This doesn't mean he doesn't have a handle on the language though; the prose in this book is literally dripping with quality. The descriptions and scene setting are some of the best I've come across. He fills his book with the kind of observations littering the first few pages of Steinbeck's East of Eden.

Despite the eloquent language the subject matter is brutal, harsh and uncompromising. It tells the tale of 'the kid' of indeterminate origin and the crew of scalp-hunters he enlists with. The group is thirty strong at the beginning of the novel and from the first encounter with the Apaches you know the numbers will be whittled down. They are lead by Captain Glanton, but the true voice in the group is the Judge. Perhaps as enigmatic as the author himself, the judge is a great man, seven foot tall, bald and entirely hairless. He winds through the novel crossing 'the kids' path many a time.

This is definitely not the wild west Hollywood would like you to believe in, this is gritty, dirty and incredibly well researched. The Mexican towns and the poverty the men encounter, along with some of the outrageous acts they commit, make for a book about as far away from Dances With Wolves as you can get. This is true western fiction. Highly Recommended.

Available from www.waterstones.com £7.99