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It is one of the great openings to a book:
People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.
Here is what happened.

I enjoyed the form of the novel - told in the first person long after the action had happened, the remembrances of a now aged woman of when she was 14 years old.

It is told in a straightforward manner. It is chronological, but introduces information not known at the time, in the form of small breakaways - and they are always explained (ie "I found out later that..."). It is a very old-testament view of crime and punishment, as far as Mattie is concerned, if you commit the crime, you suffer the consequences. Inadvertently she is very funny in her adultness - although this is likely the elderly spinster narrator coming through too. She speaks her mind and doesn't accept being taken advantage of.

When Mattie Ross arrives in Fort Smith she finds the law will likely do very little to pursue the murderer she takes her own action. She asks around, and finds a Deputy Marshall (known to have "grit") and offers to pay him a bonus bounty for hunting down Tom Chaney, and bringing him back to Fort Smith.

Reuben 'Rooster' Cogburn is a middle-aged, one-eyed, overweight alcoholic, but according to the sheriff “He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don’t enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork.� When Mattie locates 'Rooster', he is testifying in court against a captured murderer. The defense, in cross referencing has him admit to having killed 23 men in the course of his work capturing wanted men hiding out in Indian Territory. Mattie is therefore convinced of the 'grit' she is looking for.

After making a deal with Cogburn, she is accosted by LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger turned bounty hunter who is also pursuing Tom Chaney, although he knows him by another name. He dismisses Mattie, sending her back home to her ma, treating her like a child. This, of course, has the opposite effect, and she is determined to see justice done, and will travel with Cogburn.

The three end up travelling together, an uneasy grouping as they feel out their levels of trust, while LaBoeuf continues to demand Mattie return home.

I am not in the game of spoilers in fiction, so will leave off the plot at that.

Reminiscent of Winter's Bone for its youthful female lead, headstrong and with 'grit' of her own, this novel is well worth searching out. Published in 1968, while it tells of a time gone by in the days of Indian Country, it still reads authentically and in a style relevant today.

5 stars