[2] Set between the late seventies and the present, the novel explores the mysterious Slade House and a number of characters who are drawn to it.

In 1997, a group of students belonging to a paranormal club converge upon Slade House, intending to investigate the disappearances of the Bishops and Edmonds.

Sally mingles with the guests of the party before waking to find herself next to a frozen man implied to be Inspector Edmonds, who hands her a weapon, a hairpin with a fox head.

Freya, believing Pink to be mad, intends to leave, but finds herself in the attic of Slade House.

In 2015, Norah Grayer invites the former psychologist of Fred Pink, Doctor Iris Marinus-Fenby, to Slade House.

After eighteen years without fresh energy, the house's reality is decaying and Jonah remains injured and trapped in the attic.

Norah inhabits the body of a young conspiracy theorist, who lures Iris into the garden with the insistence Pink was not mad.

Within the reality of Slade House, it is clearly fading away, and a weakened Norah and Jonah are unable to play their normal mind games.

Marinus criticises the antiquity of the Grayers' methods compared to new ones, and encourages Jonah to attack, allowing her to easily destroy him.

As with all of David Mitchell's novels, Slade House contains references to his other works; be they people, places or events.