There has been a ton of hype around this book since its release, and let me tell you - every bit of it is deserved. Currently, in my head, there is a war going on between Mean Spirited and Felix Blackwell's The Church Beneath the Roots for the creepiest thing I've read all year. (And, oddly, both books heavily feature dogs.) I'm pretty stoic when it comes to books affecting me in the real world, but Nick Roberts's writing is so cinematic that I had to stop several times to reflect on the absolute wrongness of what I had just read. Easy 5 stars.