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A white bird sits inside a black and thorny tree. Five drawings left by a woman who died during childbirth form a hidden image when placed together. A young boy covers part of his picture in heavy black strokes. A murdered art teacher leaves behind a landscape that appears to record his final moments.

Momentum is a strange kind of power in fiction. Some novels persuade slowly, almost imperceptibly; others seize you outright, pulling you forward with such force that resistance feels pointless. Along Came a Spider belongs, unmistakably, to the latter. It is not a novel that lingers at the edges of a reader’s attention—it insists, from its opening pages, on being followed.