Damn. If this doesn't get shortlisted for both the Giller & the GG, something is seriously wrong. Unlike a lot of fiction that gets rewarded by Canadian prize juries, this work is not a navel-gazing inquiry into identity, isolation, or memory, but actually about the story, first and foremost. And it's well-written.

Two hired gun brothers sent from Oregon to San Francisco to carry out a killing, but of course things don't go as planned. McCarthy comparisons happening already, but the humour makes it feel more like Portis's True Grit (albeit darker), but with McCarthy's unflinching gaze at violence. Put it on the shelf beside Dexter's Deadwood, & Ron Hansen - best literary western I've read in recent memory.