By Michael Rutger

Zaffre, out now

Nolan Moore and his crew investigate mysterious walls in a town where a teenage girl has gone missing…

Michael Rutger (aka Intruders writer Michael Marshall Smith) introduced online weirdness investigator Nolan and his team in The Anomaly and this sequel more than lives up to the blend of action and the supernatural in that book.

Rather than the wide expanses of the Grand Canyon, this time they’re in a small town whose inhabitants are unsurprisingly on edge following the disappearance of a teenage girl. Like any small community, people have secrets to keep hidden, but as Nolan soon realises, things are rather more serious than usual.

Rutger makes Nolan’s estranged wife Kristy a key character in the book, and the story jumps between Nolan’s first person narration and third person relaying other people’s viewpoints – and some of those points of view are, to put it mildly, unusual. The story starts with what appears to be a standard “strangers ’baint be welcome here now” type of mystery – complete with threats drawn on the windshield that interlopers should “go now” – but weirdly moving phones, inexplicable weather and people behaving increasingly out of character ratchet up the tension, and what looks initially like bullying is something far more terrifying.

Rutger doesn’t let the tension slip for one moment with some very evocative turns of phrase, and the sense of dread that envelops the characters will get you too – even on the sunniest of days…

Verdict: A gripping, well-told blend of mystery, thriller and the supernatural – a description I’m sure I’ve used before of this author’s work! 9/10

Paul Simpson