Read the whole trilogy in one gulp. Woodrell conjures a whole-cloth coon-ass countryside, replete with every shade of lowlife. And every lowlife Shade is a gem. Rene Shade, iffy cop and native son, carries the first two novels, but his dad arrives with young daughter in tow to enliven the third novel. Though the first two books are well constructed and full of dialog that sizzles with local flavor, the third book holds hints of where this Winter's Bone author is headed. The elder Shade rips off some neologisms that I won't soon forget -- "stragedy" being my favorite. While the first two novels are more along the line of thriller/procedurals, the third is more along the line of No Country for Old Men, with unlikely criminals fleeing a relentless killer. The final scene is as elegiac as I've read in many years.