<p><b>Set in rural Tennessee between the world wars, <i>The Orchard Keeper</i> is the unique, darkly biblical debut novel from the legendary author of <i>Blood Meridian</i> and <i>The Road</i>, Cormac McCarthy.</b><br><br><b>'McCarthy has the best kind of Southern style' – <i>New York Times</i></b><br><br>John Wesley Rattner is a young boy when his father is murdered. Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger, strangled him to death.<br><br>By chance, John and Marion will meet. They will not recognize each other; John will not know what this man has done.<br><br>An experimental debut following in the footsteps of William Faulkner, this is a magnificent conjuring of an American landscape – and a devastating portrayal of innocence lost.<br><br><b>Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador