No Country for Old Men is Cormac McCarthy’s first novel since finishing the Border Trilogy in 1998. And while it is completely different from All the Pretty Horses and the Crossing in setting and pacing, Cormac uses the same stark and often brutal style as his earlier novels. No Country follows the stories of three central characters in a world of drugs and violence, set in Texas in the 80’s.
Putting the violence aside, No Country for Old Men is the most accessible of McCarthy novels that I’ve read for people new to him. It was easy for someone to get lost in the meandering story and complete lack of standard punctuation in his earlier books, but I think that is part of their charm.
No Country for Old Men is a great book that I definitely recommend as a starter book for readers interesting in McCarthy. To truly appreciate his gifts as a storyteller, however, I would still say that All the Pretty Horses is his masterwork.