What the Hell Did I Just Read

David narrates this one himself, and he knows it. He is writing the book for an audience and says so, stopping to comment on how his own sentences will land. The story follows him, his friend John, and Amy, their girlfriend.

Their small Midwestern town has been infiltrated by a shape-shifting entity from another dimension. John is a former cop, and the trio go after the thing with occult weaponry and a good deal of improvised violence. Characters from the earlier books turn up again along the way.

This is cosmic horror in the Lovecraftian line, played with a dark comic edge and a meta-fictional streak. The book also satirises storytelling itself, so the narrator's self-awareness is part of the joke and part of the dread. The tone is irreverent, and the pace is fast, driven by absurd action setpieces.

It is the third book in the series, after John Dies at the End and This Book Is Full of Spiders. Jason Pargin writes the series under the pseudonym David Wong. Readers who know the earlier books will recognise the mix of real cosmic unease and deadpan humour.