The late great American master Cormac McCarthy gave the world one final pair of works before his death earlier this year. Expansive and experimental, bewildering and bold, The Passenger and Stella Maris are a worthy capstone to his legacy, a meandering lament and stark coda that together trace a captivating path through maths, physics, love and grief.

They tell the story of two brilliant but tortured siblings, each lost in the world as much as they in their own minds, each mourning bygone times and lost futures, and each coping with their tragic separation from the other.

McCarthy's work has always demanded careful, contemplative reading and these novels are no different.