The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt ✔✔

This was an interesting read when I first started it. It's basically a western, a story about Charlie and Eli Sisters, who are brothers, and hired assassins who are on a journey to find and kill a Mr. Warm, who has a formula for finding gold in the California Gold Rush. The author has chosen to use much more elevated language than one usually finds in a western: for example: "we set up in a drafty, lopsided hotel at the southernmost end of town. There was but a single vacancy and Charlie and I were forced to share a room, when we typically kept individual quarters." Most Western writers would have said instead: "We had to sleep in this dive at the end of town, and since there was only one room, we had to share a bed, doggone it"

Their journey to find Warm reminded me a bit of the Canterbury Tales, because they do meet some interesting and colorful characters along the way, and they do manage to kill quite a fair number of people while en route. But by the time they found Warm, I found I didn't really care anymore, so I skimmed through to the end.