Cormac McCarthy. 
 
Knopf: 2005. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. Minimal shelf wear along the top and bottom of the jacket. Crisp book, except for some underlining and marginalia in ink on some of the pages. Sometimes there are twenty five pages without a mark, and sometimes five pages in a row have a short comment next to an underlined sentence. 309 pages. Very good.
 
A hunter in the backcountry of Texas finds a suitcase of money among corpses of drug dealers. A hired gun goes after him, and a sheriff about to retire chases them both. A clever premise given the Midas touch of great literature by Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy clearly relishes the thriller genre's play with everyday language, gleeful nastiness, and smart players trying to outfox one another. But his handling of theme, setting, and character (not least the hired gun, who's much stranger than your average psychopathic killer) elevate the game to a cosmic tragedy. The Coen brothers took note and made it into a fine film. 
 
"It's a mess, aint it, Sheriff?
If it aint it'll do till the mess gets here."