Steven Hall’s debut novel The Raw Shark Texts is a new genre-bending, psychological thriller, packed with the intense puzzles of The Da Vinci Code and the shark-chasing tale Jaws.

Hall plunks readers in the midst of one man’s struggle to remember his past while trying to escape the clenching jaws of a Ludovician shark, an aggressive conceptual fish lurking in the streams of memories, the constant flow of information and familiar habits of its victims.

Like a modern folklore legend, the Ludovician snatches the memories of people making too many ripples and leaves them as a remnant of their former self. Similar to an airborne virus infecting a crowd on the subway, the Ludovician moves though strings of ideas, thoughts and memories to find its prey before devouring their minds.

Following the intense expedition for the rare and highly dangerous Ludovician shark, readers follow Eric Sanderson the Second through a series of puzzles, investigations and personal struggles after jolting back to life not knowing who he is or where he is from. Infiltrated by letters from Eric Sanderson the First, Sanderson the Second tries to piece together his past with strings of memories described in letters sent to him at intervals from his former self.

It doesn't take long before Sanderson the Second is told his former self has unleashed the most deadly of conceptual fish into the streams of communication, and it's hungry for him alone. Survival is the key, and Sanderson the Second must undergo a series of bizarre procedures so he doesn’t leave his scent as he searches for the one person who can help him make sense of his dilemma.

Through trials, mistrials and blind leaps of faith, this book is like nothing you’ve ever read. It’s a touching, titillating psychological adventure that will have readers shaking their heads in disbelief long after it’s found its place on the bookshelf. Satisfying to the very end, this is a gripping tale.

Hall literally creates pictures using words. From fossilized fish reconstructions to infectious viruses and an all-out shark attack, this is more than just a story — it’s an experience. Page after page, Hall offers the reader clues, postcards, letters and pictures of what Sanderson has found or is seeing, making the reader tingle in anticipation.

While the puzzles are not as tightly woven or as sensationalized as, say, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Hall does offer a sophisticated and logical investigation into the Ludovician. He builds up the conceptual fish in such a way that readers are left wondering if it could exist.

The book does take an unexpected turn for the weird, similar to the search for Jaws, when it merges the world of concept with reality. The rows upon rows of jagged teeth, the black voids with the prey in sight and the menacing appearance of looming death as it makes its advance becomes as real as the great white scouring our deep blue oceans.

It’s a strange turn that can read like an easy way out of the complex world Hall created. But, while this book takes on a surreal tone very different from how it begins, this is what makes Hall's story so cunning — there can be no right or wrong answer in a conceptual world. The Raw Shark Texts is a perplexity and readers who enjoy figuring out puzzles will love wrapping their brains around this one.