Cormac McCarthy

'Blood Meridian' presents an epic novel of the violent American West. The story is loosely based on accounts of murder along the border between Texas and Mexico in the 1850s.

Llewelyn Moss is hunting antelope near the Rio Grande when he discovers the aftermath of a drug deal turned deadly. Finding bullet-ridden bodies, several kilos of heroin, and a caseload of cash, he faces a choice - walk away or take the money and run. Choosing the latter, he knows, will change everything. And so begins a terrifying chain of events, as each player in this brutal game seems determined to answer one question: how does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.