I guess you could call I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS a creepy book, Hitchcockian.

It is short and takes place in just one evening. Jake and his girlfriend drive two hours to have dinner with his parents in their old farmhouse. She is thinking of ending things with him and ruminates on that throughout the book.

Everything that evening is strange. The farmhouse is strange, Jake's parents are strange, the girls at the Dairy Queen are strange, and their detour to the big school is strange. You'll be searching for correct explanations through it all.

Between chapters are discussions that are clues to what is really going on. When you finally figure it out, you'll probably want to go back and re-read those clues.

Or you might not figure it out. You might think, as I did, that you figured it out until you talk about it with your book club. Then you realize this book leaves you with a lot of questions.

I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS is Iain Read's first novel, although he has written two award-winning books of nonfiction. I'll be keeping my eye on him now.