Probably Abercrombie's best book to date. He's an excellent writer but his books, like many of his characters, tend to be formidable, interesting, complex but fundamentally unlovable. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. The masterful cyncism of the plotting in the First Law trilogy was a superb deconstruction of fantasy tropes, though one that was hardly badly-needed or unique. What was more interesting was the way it all ended up being more like a noir than anything else. Red Country is unabashedly Western in its influence, a genre that has deconstructed its own myths thoroughly in print and on screen, making it a good fit with Abercrombie's savage world. Two things in particular make this novel stand out. One is the characters, particularly the supporting cast, who are allowed to develop and survive and whose positive attributes - usually a deadpan fatalistic humour and tough dogged pragmatism - seem more appropriate to the world than the sort of starry-eyed idealism or arrogant entitlement that the author seems to enjoy knocking down so much. Related to that is the dialogue, straight out of Portis or Lansdale or McMurtry, which is often a pure joy to read and alleviates the grimness considerably. Other than that there's the violent, blood-soaked, action-packed quest across the dying frontier to keep the reader enthralled and turning the pages at a ferocious rate.