StevenHall’s quirky debut drew mixed reviews last year – The Times said that it “shuttles between logorrhoea and a bagful of exhausted ideas” – and it seems designed to appeal to the audience of bestsellers such as The Da Vinci Code and other works involving puzzle-solving and lost memory – Christopher Nolan’s maddeningly enigmatic film Memento springs to mind.

It is narrated by one Eric Sanderson, who comes to in a strange house not remembering who he is or how he got there. Consulting a psychiatrist fails to help, so he takes matters into his own hands. Following clues provided by letters that he has been receiving from his alter ego, the “first” Eric Sanderson, and accompanied by his cat, Ian, Eric the Second heads north; specifically, to Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Blackpool. Here he hopes to track down Dr Trey Fidorous, a specialist in memory – and particularly the dreaded memory-eating shark, the Ludovician. Also on the trail of Fidorous is the winsome Scout, who bears a disturbing resemblance to Eric’s girlfriend, Clio, whose death in a diving accident was the start of all his troubles.

There is much more of the same whimsical stuff, culminating in a kind of magic realist homage to the shark-hunting scene in Jaws. The Raw Shark Texts is being adapted for film, and is the sort of book you either love or loathe – no middle way is possible. That, if nothing else, is something of an achievement.

The Raw Shark Texts by StevenHall
Canongate, £7.99

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist