Yes, the pace seems slow, but that is part of what makes the book so immersive (think Gravety’s Rainbow or Delaney’s ‘Dhalgren’). What Vector sees as character deficiencies may be intentional, too… what starts as a straightforward gangster plot is increasingly undermined by unrealistic aspects of the actions and inner life of the characters, until this emerges as “what the book is about”.

This book is not written like other books, and that will be dissappointing if that is what you were expecting, but this is often the charm of first novels. I see the author now trades as D B Shan, and appears pigeonholed as a horror writer - I hope the uniqueness of his style hasn’t been clipped to meet the expectations of vectored readers.