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I would advise not reading certain parts of this book at the breakfast table or on a bus or during your dinner hour at work as it is possible that your nasolacrimal ducts may spontaneously issue forth liquid material that may flow copiously down your lower face and chin and may possibly cause ignorant people to stare. Now I am not saying that this happened to me, but it could have, had I not have taken precautions.

Years ago I discovered the genre I call Modern Victorian (The Quincunx, Fingersmith, The Crimson Petal and the White) and now I realise there is a companion genre Modern Western, of which the granddaddies must be Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry but then we have such stuff as True Grit and The Sisters Brothers and now News of the World.

So, to cut a long story, I loved this and could see Donald Sutherland as the old peripatetic newspaper reader (it was a thing in 1870) Captain Kidd and McKenna Grace, the kid from the maths-genius film Gifted, as Johanna, captured by the Kiowa at aged 6 and now recaptured aged ten. The captain is tasked with returning this girl back to her aunt and uncle. It’s a long way (from Wichita Falls to near San Antonio, hostile country nearly all the way). The kid does not want to be taken. The kid thinks she is a Kiowa because now, she is.

Maybe the drawback of Modern Westerns is that the plot is always about some long ass difficult journey with irritable types wanting to shoot you every minute of the livelong day. But then, maybe that’s a strength because these long ass journeys are very cool, featuring animals (there is always one beloved horse with one eye and a heart of gold) and bandits (always one bandit with one eye and a heart of gold) and gruesome deaths. There is also a lot of nature, given that mostly things take place in the open air. So, flowers and trees and gurgling streams and suchlike. That’s nice. Paulette Jiles knows the names of all of this greenery. Myself, I know rose and tulip and daisy. That’s about it.

As well as the gunplay and third-class travelling and salty conversation there is always some strong emotion sloshing about, attacks can come from anywhere, so like I say, read this book in private, away from uninformed eyes that know nothing of the great difficulty of transporting a ten year old girl through many dangerous situations in order to deliver her like a package; and the love that gets mixed up with it all.