They burned her home.
They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . . 

Goddamn, it’s back to the mud for me!! It’s been quite awhile since I read The Heroes, and what a fucking treat it was, just opening this book and getting back into Joe Abercrombie’s amazing First Law world!

I tried avoiding as much as I possibly could about Red Country since finishing The Heroes, but one thing I kept seeing again & again was that this was Abercrombie’s take on a western. And holy fuck…is it ever. From the moment we meet our main character, Shy South, the western vibes are strong with this story. She’s a down-on-her-luck farmer, caring for her two younger siblings, with the help of Lamb, a family friend with a mysterious past (this is a Joe Abercrombie novel after all…seems like everyone has a mysterious past!). 

Her siblings are kidnapped, and the farm is destroyed…this sets the entire plot in motion. Shy & Lamb set out to find them, and adventure ensues. I couldn’t help think of things like The Searchers or True Grit as I read this…from the way the Near Country is described, to the western-tinged way that Shy speaks, it really is a grimdark spaghetti western in many ways! 

As always, the writing is fucking glorious…who does this better than Joe Abercrombie? Just so goddamn good. And his characterizations are always so vivid…a few pages into this, and I could tell Shy South was destined to join Caul Shivers & Thorn Bathu as one of my FAVORITE ABERCROMBIE CHARACTERS EVER!!!! She really is a fucking delight…impetuous to a point, an artist in profanity, big-hearted, badass…she’s just everything I love in a character & more. 

The three standalones in the First Law world (but you HAVE TO read all six First Law books in order!!!) are all so distinctive, while taking place in the same world & in a (relatively) short span of time. Of the three, Red Country strikes me as…the sweetest? There’s just something so pure at the heart of this story…granted, it’s all buried under layers of muck & shit & blood…but there’s this incredible tenderness that’s unique to this one. GAHH!! A hard one to review without getting spoilery, but this was another fucking masterpiece from Lord Grimdark himself!! Loved it!!