Disclosure - I was supplied an advanced copy by the author in exchange for an honest review.

R.S. Guthrie's 3rd novel is a master stroke of gritty story telling, fully realized characters and a sort of genre cross over where the stage is the American West and the act is a compelling tale of murder and mystery that is breath taking in it's execution.

So compelling was Blood Land, that I completed it in a couple of sittings over the course of a weekend, which - for me - is unprecedented. Guthrie immerses the reader into a thinking persons Western, a tragic murder that involves the protagonist intimately. Guthrie's Sheriff Pruett is a quintessential every-man, a quiet and methodical investigator who has to take on perhaps the most heart wrenching investigation of his life - and we feel it, viscerally. The cast of characters around Pruett are equally vivid in their presence and their motivations and machinations are a delight to unfold as the story progresses.

The story flows slowly - not too slowly - but in such a way that it allows us to reflect on the situations Guthrie presents to us, before he ramps up the tension and action that thrills, horrifies and excites all at once.

The setting of rural Wyoming was another stand out that I will take away from my first reading and return to enthusiastically in subsequent readings. Guthrie has probably portrayed a place in the most tactile and visual fashion of any author I have read in recent memory. I could feel and smell Wyoming in all it's unadorned beauty and, as I described similarly, earlier it was a masterful example of penmanship.

Blood Land is important addition to the classic Western and Murder/Mystery genres and fans of both should consider this novel as a priority for their reading device.