To provide even the shortest of precis is to ruin it, and it deserves not to be ruined.

There are two things in particular that I like about Jones' writing. The first is his mastery of voice. All the book's language reinforces the story, and much of the fun is experiencing that sort of interiority: if one of the purposes of the novel is to prove solipsism incorrect, then Jones wields Descartes like a shiv. This book would not work without that.

The second is his mastery of the liminal as it relates to horror. Things operate at the borderline of the believable and the unbelievable. Nothing here is tidy, but instead of being a frustrating ambiguity, it is frightening. Events are factually clear, but underlying causation is left subject to interpretation, which is unsettling. Is it a supernatural, or at least horror-trope, experience, or is it mundane? You do not know. It adds a whole dimension to the concept of suspense.

Here,

Spoiler

the seductive quality of Sawyer's thought process operates to pull the reader in and make them complicit in his crimes. It is Jones' mastery of voice that allows for that. You do not rightfully understand even what sub-genre of horror this is in until midway through the book, after it is too late for everyone, as the first page itself spells out. And even if you kenned to it earlier on, that the story never confirms things, that it leaves just enough on the page to suggest that maybe this isn't a psychotic break and Something Else, elevates it from what might be annoying gaps, or otherwise come off as a cheap stunt.