Unexplainable events are common horror fodder, but perhaps even more terrifying are events whose source is so diffuse, so unplaceable, that our framework of mortal cause and effect cannot contain it.

The haunted houses is the paradigmatic example of this sort of fear. In Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and other possessed literary corridors, we recoil as a domestic sanctuary closes in around us. A door, a floorboard, and even the air itself feel charged with something willfully sinister.

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Literature reminds us that places—cities, rives, even whole countries—are possessed of their own power. Read on for 5 horror and other dark novels set in places that teem with unseen forces

Our Share of Night (by Mariana Enriquez)
The City and the City (by China Miéville)
Fever Dream (by Samanta Schweblin)
The Memory Police (by Yoko Ogawa)
Harlequin's Millions (by Bohumil Hrabal)

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