This book by Patrick DeWitt just about fulfils my every need – a mix between Deadwood and Cormac McCarthy. On a sentence level it is music, surprising you every now and then with a great metaphor. On a whole book level it is full of suspense and dare I say it – plot. Within moments the reader is feeling warmth for the killer, Eli and disdain for his brother Charlie.
When Charlie and Eli enter a cabin inhabited by a witch-like woman DeWitt writes;
“Charlie’s face had grown hard.’This isn’t your cabin, is it?’
At this she stiffened, and did not look to be breathing. She pulled back her rags, and in the firelight and lamplight I saw she had almost no hair on her head, only white tufts here and there, and her skull was dented, appearing soft in places, pushed in like an old piece of fruit. ‘Every heart has a tone,’ she said to Charlie,’just as every bell has one. Your heart’s tone is most oppressive to hear, young man. It is hurtful to my ears, and your eyes hurt my eyes to look at them.'”
the chook house 