It was never meant to be a cage. It started as a sculpture, built by two refugees who break their journey at a hotel in a small town. But somehow its door shuts, its key is lost, and they are stuck inside.

Of course, the locals do the decent thing: a board of trustees is formed, food is provided, and observations are made by Sport, the tale’s young narrator. “They are not incarcerated, they are temporarily caged,” explain the trustees.

Jones’s international breakthrough, the fine Mister Pip, had literature at its heart, but no one here reads, or is particularly curious about what might have pushed the “Strangers” into this land of sheep-grazed hills and hobby farms, reminiscent of the author’s native New Zealand.

The prisoners’ routines are central to the novel – eggs for food, spooned through a hatch in the morning, the quest for warmth at night, the corner they use as a loo. The resulting stench spreads through the hotel as the Strangers, once celebrities, start to feel like a curse. Absurdity sits at the book’s heart, but this matter-of-fact fable is a compelling, grimly believable tale of how a community can convince itself wrong is right, and how small steps can lead to madness.

• The Cage is published by Turnaround. To order a copy for £9.34 (RRP £10.99) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.