Crime novels, whether thrillers, police procedurals, or hard-boiled detective stories, are about order. A catastrophic event, usually an act of violence, shatters the peace of a community, and the rest of the story is about turning that community inside out to restore a state of normality. Nondescript Rambunctious, for which Jackie Bateman won the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University’s First Book Competition in the fiction category, is a thriller that succeeds by nodding politely to the formula, then turning it on its head.

The novel has four narrators, but Bateman weaves their voices together effortlessly, and the build-up retains all the suspense and intensity one expects from a crime thriller. Upon being released from prison, germaphobic loner Oliver settles in the village of Dalbegie in the Scottish Highlands. He quickly becomes obsessed with Lauren, a middle-aged clerk at the nearby newsagent’s, and later with Lizzy, her 12-year-old daughter.

Unlike a standard crime novel, however, when Lauren disappears, it doesn’t disrupt the order of Dalbegie. Instead, it serves to expose the violence that already seethes beneath its surface. Lauren was beaten by Lizzy’s absentee father. Her sister Maureen’s husband is a borderline alcoholic who is emotionally abusive and neglectful. Lizzy’s friend Simon practically raised himself, and one of his mother’s more regular boyfriends constantly humiliates him, and nearly beats him to death over drugs. The community at large isn’t oblivious to any of this, but in true small-town fashion, they behave as though they are. Lauren’s disappearance couldn’t possibly disrupt the tranquility of Dalbegie because that tranquility is a chimera.

Bateman hasn’t imagined a world of dogged cops, rumpled detectives, or amateur sleuths. Nondescript Rambunctious is about the heartbreaking consequences of human depravity, not tying up loose ends or piecing together clues. It wouldn’t be wrong to label this novel a thriller, but it also confounds the expectations of that label, to great effect.