Jason Rekulak

Hidden Pictures gives a recovering addict a nannying job in a wealthy New Jersey suburb, and a five-year-old who starts producing drawings far beyond his ability, of a woman being dragged through a forest.

The drawings are printed in the book, which turns the reader into someone examining evidence rather than being told about it.

Rekulak ran an independent publisher for years before writing, and The Impossible Fortress, his first, is a 1980s comedy about teenagers and a computer magazine, which is about as far from the second as it is possible to get.