This is officially the 1000th review I've written on Goodreads, and I wanted to make sure that the book would fit the occasion so that's why I decided to re-read this one. What better novel could I choose than this heartwarming tale of human kindness from one of the most optimistic men on the planet, Cormac McCarthy?* 
 * Note - That statement is sarcasm done in the interest of humor. 1000 reviews have taught me that I apparently have to explain that or someone with poor reading comprehension will troll me in the comments. 
 In 1980 Llewellyn Moss is just a working Texan living in a trailer home with his young wife, Carla Jean. One day Llewellyn goes out hunting and comes home with a lot more than meat for the stew pot after he stumbles across the aftermath of a huge drug deal gone wrong in the desert. Over $2 million in a satchel would be hard for anyone to resist taking with no one around to know better, but giving into temptation unleashes hell in the form of Anton Chigurh, a relentless enforcer who removes any obstacles in his path with a cattle bolt gun and a silenced .12 gauge. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is also on Llewellyn's trail, and he has to bear witness to the incredible violence unleashed by Chigurh and others. When Chigurh's actions grow too much for the men who sent him they hire the savvy Carson Wells to stop him and recover the money. 
 An unsuspecting reader unfamiliar with the story or McCarthy's work might expect this to be simply a crime novel, and that's how a good chunk of the story plays at first. Llewellyn may seem like your average good-ole-boy, but he's also a Vietnam vet who shows a fair amount of caution and smarts even when he's forced to go on the run. He's clear eyed enough to know that once he's taken the money that there's no going back, and he's actually got some good survival instincts for this kind of thing. However, for all the determination and capability he shows, and even knowing that he's put himself in the crosshairs of very dangerous people by taking the money, Llewellyn doesn't truly understand what he's gotten himself into. 
 The actions of those involved in the drug trade at that level have created an ocean of evil and chaos. The satchel full of money is just a bit of debris that washed up on shore that Llewellyn found like a piece of driftwood that he thinks he can scamper off with, and he'll be fine as long as he stays off the beaches. However, something else lurks in those depths. Maybe it's something new or maybe it's something ancient that was awakened by all the noise around it, but this creature won't stop at the water's edge. Anton Chigurh strides out of that ocean on two legs but still fully capable of devouring anything in his path with no more thought than a shark gives any fish it chomps. He can swim or run, it makes no real difference to him as long as he gets to eat. 
 Sheriff Bell has been aware of existence of men like Chigurh, and he's not sure how to stop them or even if they can be fought. Take a boat out on the those waters and you'll probably get dragged down into the depths with them. Battle them on the shores and you're still likely to get pulled in and chewed up. What really worries Bell is that it seems like water is rising and a lot of people seem willing to dive in, and he's pretty well convinced that the entire world is sliding into hell. 
 That's why I consider this a next level book. The idea of a guy finding a bag of money and getting bad people on his trail has been done before. The characters also could be cliches. The regular guy with a tough streak, the bad ass pursuing him, the honest law man, the worried wife, the roguish hustler looking for an angle, etc etc. McCarthy is good and sneaky enough to let that play to the point where you think that you know how the story will end, and that's when he pulls the rug out from under you. It's also where the book really shifts from what seems like a straightforward thriller to a brooding contemplation about fate vs. free will as well as good vs. evil. 
 I could make some complaints about that might ordinarily knock it down from 5 to 4 stars for me. McCarthy's style of doing a minimum of punctuation so that quotation marks aren't used and apostrophes are seldom seem can cause confusion and often seems like a distracting affectation, but on the other hand this is a book about the normal rules not applying so it does seem to work in a way. The story also seems to be littered with anachronisms for 1980. There's a mobile phone capable of fitting in a shirt pocket at a time when a cell phone was essentially a bag, and while ATMs existed I don't know if they would have been common in south Texas at the time. A Glock pistol is mentioned, but they wouldn't exist for at least another year or two. Plus, I'm no gun expert, but I don't think it's actually possible to silence a shotgun. 
 Despite that nitpicking this book hits an intersection of things I love. It's a fusion of genres that draws on crime stories and westerns, but it ultimately becomes Very Serious Lit-A-Chur that's done in a minimalist way that works very well for me. I'm also a deeply cynical person who agrees with McCarthy's dim view of the world so I appreciate a story that isn't blinding rainbows and unicorn farts. It also has the advantage of being turned into the fantastic flm by the Coen brothers which is one of my favorite book-to-screen adaptations. So I'll stick with the 5 stars and consider it among the best of the best. 
 Since this #1000, I'll also provide a little bonus content. The violence associated with the drug trade in Mexico and it's creep into the US has sparked a lot of great fiction that can be genuinely chilling in it's depiction of the way it can corrupt and utterly destroy people. If you're into that sort of thing I also recommend: 
 - The film The Counselor was also written Cormac McCarthy. It isn't nearly at the level of this one, but I do think it was unfairly savaged by critics. It's not great, but it is good and shares similarities. You'll also never look at Cameron Diaz in quite the same way again. 
 - Writer Don Winslow has been researching the history of the drug trade on the American/Mexican border for years, and he has two fantastic books that are essentially historical fiction that shine a lot on how US policies helped create that monster in The Power of the Dog and The Cartel. His Savages is also a black action comedy about people who think they can just dip their hands into that flow for profit and not get sucked into it. They are wrong. 
 - Sicario is a great and criminally overlooked film from last year that features a haunting performance by Benicio del Toro. It should also come with a warning label to abandon all hope before watching. 
 Thanks to all those who voted and commented without being a trollish asshat on my first 1000 reviews. It's genuinely appreciated, and I hope that you now all know better than to try and keep a bag of drug money you find in the desert.