We’re reading ‘Shadow Country’ as we travel through the land Peter Matthiessen conceived (or more truthfully, captured) to great acclaim. Michael first read it when it was three books – the giant whole chopped up into three books, the Watson Trilogy published in the 1990s.

All three- ‘Killing Mr Watson, ‘Lost Man’s River’, ‘Bone by Bone’ – were considered a great triumph, a shocking, gripping, bare-knuckle epic story of the racism, prejudice and frontier justice that was the norm in Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

But a few years ago, Mr Matthiessen decided to rework his magnum opus and pull the three books together into the one (as originally conceived). He says he planned to spend a year doing this; it took seven or eight instead.

The result is ‘Shadow Country’ and it is extraordinarily powerful.