Welcome to Laura Restrepo's Colombia - a world of the barrio, the hacienda and mariachi bands. If you add drug-running and incestuous desire, you still have only a taste of what's in store in her novel Leopard in the Sun.

When Nando Barragan kills his cousin Adriano Monsalve he sets in motion a vendetta that lasts for twenty years, which is where we pick up the story. On every anniversary of the murder the avenging family has twenty-four hours in which they may take the life of a cousin. Only men can be victims, and the cemeteries are full of Barragans and Monsalves.

And so it would continue, but for the act of one person who sets into motion a series of events that leaves one family ruined. There is plenty of suspense as the reader waits to discover how the story will unfold and who will die.

Restrepo draws her characters and their motivations vividly. I cannot forget Nando - his pockmarked face, his filthy shirt and his stench. Or La Muda, Arcangel and Raca for their various quirks. I will long remember Narciso, the aesthete, who adores women and owns a violet limousine:

The main story alternates with a separate dialogue. A second narrator tells of the families and their feud, and a listener asks questions. This is an interesting aspect of the novel. It reinforces both the gravitas of the vendetta and the exciting twists in the plot, a story so thrilling that it has become legend and is still being recounted.

Yes, there is violence, but the foreground of Leopard in the Sun is all about the people. I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Colombia, and this novel is one of my favourite reads so far this year.

Leopard in the Sun won the 2002 Premio Arzobispo San Clemente Award. A short biography of Laura Restrepo is available at Encyclopedia.com.