Somewhere during China Miéville’s short new novel, THIS CENSUS-TAKER (Del Rey, $24), longtime Miéville readers are going to wonder exactly what they’re reading. On the surface this is the story of a troubled boy raised by troubled parents in a troubled town, all very slice of life. The moment readers should realize they’ve got something different on their hands comes a little before Page 163, when the census taker of the title shows up. And then they’ll be wrong again.

The most speculative element of this book is its structure. The guessing games start early, when the narrator presents himself as a boy who saw his mother kill his father. Or was it his father killing his mother? It’s a mystery, the reader thinks, and settles into trying to find clues and parse motives. Then it becomes clear that the boy’s father is a violent schizophrenic, or something on that spectrum. Aha, the reader thinks: This is the story of what it’s like to live with a mentally ill person . . . until the narrative suggests the boy has himself been driven out of reason by a profound loneliness. So maybe this is a first-person account of life amid delusions? Is anyone even dead?

Along the way, there are hints of the otherworldly. The boy’s murderous father is a key-maker, but his keys do not open doors. And what is actually happening in this town, which seems so rundown and isolated in the wake of a mysterious war? These are sharp points along the conch shell of a narrative, poking at and drawing the reader inward until the most mundane elements of the story become off-kilter and sinister.

The only problem is, there’s no catharsis after all that spiraling intensification. This is a novel in which the journey is the story — but for those readers who actually want Miéville to take them somewhere, “This Census-Taker” may be an exercise in haunting, lovely frustration.