Sucking down a cold beer ...

Oh man, can Daniel Woodrell write. I'm halfway through The Ones You Do and it's like sucking down a cold beer on a humid, hot afternoon. It's not so much reading as immersion. It's a book full of great lines and neat, sharp character descriptions.

Here's Lunch Pumphery, a small, hard man who exerts power through violence and fear. 'Lunch looked like a self-portrait by a self-expressionist who'd been skipping his lithium.'

And here is John X. Shade's son - 'Tip Shade was a jumbo package of pock-faced bruiser, with long brown hair greased behind his ears, hanging to his shoulders. His eyes were of a common but unnamed brown hue. He tended to scowl by reflex and grunt in response. His neck was a holdover from some normal-necked person's nightmare, and when he crossed his arms it looked like two large snakes procreating a third.'

The Ones You Do is every bit as good as Winter's Bone - my review here.