Winter's Bone Daniel Woodrell Sceptre, 226pp, £12.99 ISBN 034089797X

Ree Dolly does not have the easiest of lives. Looking after her two younger brothers and her mute mother would be hard enough, but when her father disappears, the family stand to have their home repossessed unless he shows up in court. Poor Ree, Daniel Woodrell's 16-year-old heroine, has to traipse around the unforgiving, snow-covered Ozark Hills in Missouri, questioning all manner of distant blood relatives in the region whose sole aim appears to be as vile as possible.

"Nobody here knows all the rules yet, and that makes a rocky time," says Floyd, the husband of Ree's best friend. But Ree does not care for any rules. She ignores all advice, her single-mindedness highlighting the love and sense of responsibility she feels for her family. "I ain't never goin' to be crazy," she says to herself over and over. It is not the people who live around her that she is scared of. It is ending up like them that truly terrifies her.

Being thrust into this world is an unnerving experience. Woodrell was brought up in the Ozarks, and his picture of rural America is convincingly bleak and insular. It feels as if we have infiltrated a closed society - and yet, rather than being voyeuristic, Woodrell's eighth novel offers an immersing and rewarding experience.

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