The Restraint of Beasts

Once upon a time in Scotland, there were three men who built high-tension fences, the kind that keep animals in and humans out—or maybe the other way around. Magnus Mills gives us a wiry novel of tensile strength that proves him a writer of ferocious talent. Eerie, resonant, spare yet rich in tones both hilarious and ominous—as if a work by Irvine Welsh, or perhaps Macbeth, had been adapted by the Coen brothers—his story has a finale so ingenious, insidious, and satisfying, it remains locked in the mind long after the last wire has been strung into place.