Note-perfect thriller, building a sense of going somewhere truly and uniquely terrible, without giving any real indication of where it is until you get there. Lansdale makes it look simple: there really isn't a sense that this has been plotted or constructed, as one things happens and then another with crazy but remorseless logic, yet it all purrs like a well-oiled engine. It's character-driven, inasmuch as the characters are definitely driven to keep going to the end and do what they feel needs to be done. Superb.