I like my books (and movies) to either span a lifetime or exist in a super compressed timeframe, like a single day. I like the longer formats because they tend to pick the very best stories to represent the period of time. I like the shorter formats because they tend to include meticulous details about life in that time or place--while typically telling an interesting story.

The Ox-Bow Incident is a short-time format. I'd put it at twenty-four hours, maybe thirty-six. It delved into the minds of men put in a tough situation and given how fast the story spooled up and unfolded you, the reader, felt right there with them, pinched to think things through faster than you might like. But life has all sorts of those cards in her deck. Hopefully you and I are spared from having to make the sorts of life and death decisions this set of men had to.