This is the first book of the three book Southern Reach series. I read the first chapter of this book on io9 and was immediately hooked. Described as Roadside Picnic meets Lovecraft, this seems to be about right. {edit: Having finally watched the movie Stalker which is loosely based on Roadside Picnic, I can now say this book's mood and pacing is very similar to that wonderful movie even more so than the book.} I would also compare it to the very beginning of Justin Cronin's The Passage where he uses the emails and correspondence from one of the members of the scientific party in the Amazon as they first come into contact with the vampires. Except, there are no vampires or werewolves or zombies in this thriller. What we get a glimpse of may be much more sinister. 
 The story is advanced through the observations and journal notes of a biologist, part of the twelfth team of researchers/scientists sent into Area X (a part of the coast of the southeastern US maybe, but really could be anywhere) by the mysterious Southern Reach organization. Area X, like one of the Zones in Roadside Picnic, is somehow contaminated, dangerous and devoid of human life. A complete mystery. 
 This is a very well-written, psychological read. Although we never know the names of even one character, we just know them as the biologist, the anthropologist, the surveyor, the psychologist, the reader comes to know them pretty well, not just through their chosen professions but by how they, especially the biologist, look at the world and especially how she looks at the mystery that is Area X. 
 This was a book that I couldn't put down once I started and one that will rattle around in my brain for awhile. It didn't hang on a cliffhanger like too many other series books but it also didn't clear up all the mysteries of the story. Thankfully, the other two books of the series are slated to be out in 2014 so I won't need to wait too long to find out more about this fantastical Area X.