The Sisters Brothers - Patrick Dewitt

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, a darkly funny, offbeat western about a reluctant assassin and his murderous brother.

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Across 1000 miles of Oregon desert his assassins, the notorious Eli and Charlies Sisters, ride - fighting, shooting, and drinking their way to Sacramento.

But their prey isn't an easy mark, the road is long and bloody, and somewhere along the path Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and who he does it for. Filled with a remarkable cast of losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier. It beautifully captures the humour, melancholy, and grit of the Old West, through a tale of two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.