The Third Policeman is a novel by Irish writer Brian O'Nolan under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien around 1940. It was published posthumously in 1967. Reams of criticism have been written about it's religious symbolism, its debatable status as the first "post-modern" novel. (I really don't care for that phrase. Everything currently novel is post-modern until it's passé.)
Regardless, the circular timeline wooed critics then and it remains influential now. This status, overshadows O'Nolan's clever use of language, which is what remains more notable about his actual writing when you're done being impressed at how clever he is.
The protagonist dies early in the book. But withholding that information is key to the end of the book. In Chapter 2, to avoid being his own plot spoiler, he deftly describes death as below:
"It was some change that came upon me or upon the room, indescribably subtle, yet momentous. ineffable. It was as if the daylight had changed with unnatural suddenness, as if the temperature of the evening had altered greatly in an instant or as if the air had become twice as rare or twice as dense as it had been in the winking of an eye; perhaps all of these and other things happened together for all my senses were bewildered all at once and could give me no explanation."
