Member Reviews
It's just another dull day at work for supermarket security guard Jim Doyle. Until he sees something that instantly grabs his attention. A book titled "The Nothing Man." This true-crime memoir written by Eve Black describes her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago.
The more Jim reads, the more his rage grows. Because Jim was/is The Nothing Man, and he soon realises that Eve is getting closer to the truth, and she won't stop until she finds it. Unless he stops her first...
This is a really clever psychological thriller and I loved that it's essentially a book within a book! The story felt unique and it builds tension in a way that has you desperately turning the pages to find out more.
I liked Eve's character and thought her chapters (i.e. extracts from her book) were fascinating.
In contrast, I found Jim's character flat and (dare I say it) a bit boring. HOWEVER, on reflection, I think this could have been a smart and deliberate move. Because how often does 'true crime' sensationalize the perpetrator while simultaneously shifting the focus away from the victim(s)? It was interesting to see this role-reversal.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys true-crime. The only reason I couldn't give it 5-stars is because I found some parts a little repetitive and predictable.
A MUST READ and so highly recommended. Switch off your phone and get comfortable with this book. A woman who is determined the man who killed her family, the Nothing Man. Told from the perspective of the victims and her search which makes for a real rollercoaster of a read. Heartbraking, terrifying and in places gave me the chills. I can see this book starting plenty of conversations. One book you have to read this year.
Thanks to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for the ARC.
5 massive stars and more !!
As soon as I started reading the first few pages of The Nothing Man I just knew I was going to love the book and oh boy I loved it with a passion. It’s written like a book within a book ...we know who the nothing man is and this for me added to the suspense in this completely intense, creepy and twisted read.
Catherine Ryan Howard has excelled herself with this book it’s clever, beautifully crafted and one you just don’t want to put down. I’m 100% certain this will be a massive hit and that is completely well deserved, I’m not going to try and describe the plot as it’s impossible in my opinion it’s just better to pick the book up, switch your phone off and don’t answer the door and read and read because once you start you won’t want to put it down ...well I certainly didn’t !!
So massive praise to Catherine for writing a book that gave me so much enjoyment, it’s going to be a biggie so don’t miss it !!
My thanks also to NetGalley and Atlantic Books, Corvus for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
The first book I've read by the author and it won't be the last! This is an excellent thriller with a clever approach to telling the story via the book of the victims. Realistic detail with authentic characters made this an engaging novel which I was eager to find out how it it ended. I will be recommending this novel to my family and friends when it is released.
This book was an instant hook for me from the beginning and I read it in one sitting.
The story flicks between the true crime memoir written by a survivor, Eve and the POV of The Nothing Man.
While I was gripped throughout, I personally would have liked less memoir and more thoughts/feelings of The Nothing Man.
I found myself constantly rushing through and waiting for the next time he would be introduced. These were the parts that added suspense and mystery to the narrative which kept me gripped.
It was a really enticing and enjoyable read though. While it wasn’t quite the thriller I was expecting, it was brilliant on its own merit and very well written. Super easy to get through!
Thank you Atlantic and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
The Nothing Man is a very clever thriller which throws a spotlight on our obsession with true crime stories. Eve was the sole survivor of an horrific attack on her family by a serial killer who has never been caught. She has written a book about him, hoping to finally catch him. The killer is now an old man living an unfulfilled life, his horror at the publication of the book soon turns to rage and a desire to stop Eve, once and for all. The author keeps you reading and the book within the book is cleverly done. I felt the ending was a little obvious and the twist is somewhat underplayed. Otherwise it was an enjoyable, satisfying novel.
While reading this I thought "wow, this really reminds me of I'll Be Gone in the Dark" and then I got to the end where the author credits the book as her inspiration. I really enjoyed how real this felt - Eve Black's book felt like a real true crime memoir and while I felt the ending could have been stronger, this was certainly a 4/5
I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a very clever story. What it actually is is a book within a book. Jim Doyle is a security guard in a Supermarket. One day when he is going through his daily routine he sees a woman pick up a book off the book section. He is shocked when he sees the book as it is about a serial killer called The Nothing Man. Jim is the nothing man. It has been written by Eve Black, a woman whose family was killed by him. Jim needs to read the book and find out what she knows or what she thinks she knows.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. We get to read the book that was written by Eve which doesn’t just include her own story but those of The Nothing Man’s other victims. We also get to hear about the crimes from Jim’s point of view. As I was reading this I thought that it reminded me a lot of I’ll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara and the author of this book does acknowledge that she took some inspiration from that real life case. I would argue that this book is scarier even though it is fiction. It is a good while since I was worried about reading alone in the dark.
Deliciously twisty thriller, genuinely kept me hooked from the start.
The perspective makes it stand out and it is very cleverly written.
If you like thrillers this is the book for you.
Thanks to Netgalley for this unusual but fantastic read.
Eve Black is the sole survivor of a horrific attack that left her parents and little sister dead when she was just 12 years old. The Black family were the final victims of The Nothing Man. Taken in by her grandmother Eve never had the chance to grieve for her family or speak of that terrible night again.
Years later and opening up to her grief and past Eve writes an article about The Nothing Man and what happened. This in turn ends up with Eve writing a book about the events that includes other victims with the help of Ed Healy, a police officer who is still on the heels of The Nothing Man, to hopefully flush him out.
Jim Doyle is a supermarket security guard. Jim is coasting along with a boss and job he hates waiting for retirement. Spotting the book about The Nothing Man changes everything. How has Eve managed to come back to haunt him after all these years. He had put The Nothing Man and his crimes behind him. How could she possibly know who he is. Will Jim have to finish what he started when he was The Nothing Man?
This was a very clever concept of a book within a book. You were reading Eve's book as Jim was reading it. I found myself wanting Jim to get to the end so we could find out what had happened. It was so well written that I had to keep reminding myself that the whole book had been written by Catherine Ryan Howard and not Eve Black.
Highly recommended 5 stars.
Quite a unique way for a story to be constructed. A book within a book. A serial killer reading about himself in a 'real life' crime story, written by one of his survivors. I was intrigued from the start. Well written characters and a story that seemed quite real at times.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic books for the ARC of this book.
Wow! I've never came across a book like it. This was amazing. When I first got into it, I wasnt sure if it was based on a true story or if it was fiction so I was a little confused for a bit. But the style of writing in this book is brilliant. To go from "true facts" to then fiction just makes it that more scary and interesting. The "facts" were spot on, I was reading them like it had actually happened and I was reading the information from a murder in the next town from me. The fiction part showed us how the story can be flipped to become not so real. The characters were good and chapters nice and short. Brilliant book. Definitely read this if you havent. One of my top 5 books this year. Now I want to read more true crime books. A girl survives the nothing man, now shes back to tell the story through her own book but to also catch him for all the awful crimes he has committed
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It is currently set to be published in August 2020.
"The Nothing Man" is based on a very promising concept, but ends up making for a disappointing read.
Throughout most of the naration, all we are shown is the villain reading a book about himself and his past crimes, brooding about it... and doing nothing else. The only action happening in the story is crammed in a few dozen pages towards the end. The main bulk of the novel is just a build-up, and not a particularly skillful one.
The very structure of the plot, while being quite original, has been poorly handled: the real-life novel "The Nothing Man" by real-life author Catherine Ryan contains the unabridged text of a fictional book titled "The Nothing Man" by fictional character Eve Black, and said fictional book in turn contains the text of a fictional news article based on a fictional essay of which the book itself is an expansion.
Believe me, it's exactly as confusing as it sounds. Repetitive, too, as whole chunks of the same news articles are copy-pasted in another scene halfway through the novel, and you're supposed to read it all again (or flick through the paragraphs in italics, like I did).
The fictional book also recounts in a painstakingly detailed way how Eve Black came to write said book and the process through which said book became a best-selling success. It's all so pointlessly drawn out and totally irrelevant to the story!
And when I say unabridged, the fictional book is *really* all there, even the copyright page and the acknowledgements! Talk about unnecessarily stretching things...
There are large parts of the book that are just descriptive and in no way move the plot forward, such as the protagonist's recovery from PTSD, her college studies and finally her journey to literary success. Those parts of the story are neither particularly original nor very interesting, and could have been shortened or even omitted.
The book dwells too much on the backstory of every single character, even the minor ones, that never actually appear on-scene.
And who on earth wants to read a three pages long description of the architectural design of the house of a character we never even get to meet? It's completely irrelevant to the story, and boring!
Speaking of boring, what about the two pages long list of similes about what it feels like to grieve for one's murdered family? One or two sentences would have sufficed.
Besides, some scenes get retold time and time again from different characters' perspective in a span of a few pages, and for no apparent reason other than making the book longer, because every subsequent retelling doesn't add anything new to the story.
As for the actual plot progression, it is also handled poorly: "The Nothing Man" must be the only novel I read in which bullet points were used (twice!) to make lists of possible clues about the crimes under investigation. Come on, bullet points? There must be a less clumsy way to fit your plot progression elements into the narration!
The dialogues also felt fake, unnatural: on page 290, a character keeps talking without pause for a WHOLE page, while the character she's talking to... does what? Fiddles his tuhmbs? Waits for his turn? That's not how real-life dialogues work.
Overall, the interesting bits are there, but spaced out too far away. And 11 pages for a pedanticly explanatory epilogue are just too many.
This was a little slow starting and didnt have me gripped from the start but i soon got into it and loved it, liked the characters and after the initial slow start kept a good pace throughout
I wanted to read this after enjoying Rewind by the same author last year and finding it unique and intriguing so I wondered what the next offering would be.
This book for me was even better, really gripping and so tense I read it in 2 days. I enjoyed the way the story was written, it had good pace in flicking between Eve Black’s narrative from her new book and the very stressed viewpoint of Jim.
Looking forward to reading more from this author.
This has everything I want in a read; gritty descriptive paragraphs, compelling characters and a unique storyline. I loved the whole book in a book thing it had going on.
Jim, The Nothing Man, really reminded me of the Grantley Ripper in Martina Cole’s ‘The Ladykiller’. Not in terms of his killings but just of what kind of person he is; an old man who is unhappy with his life and despises his wife.
I absolutely devoured it. Every time I put it down, I was always enticed back to read some more. I will be reading Catherine’s back catalogue now as a result.
A weirdly strange story and the changing font size didn’t help particularly if ones eyesight isn’t one hundred percent meant continually changing the print size on the kindle. However a thoroughly gripping and entertaining storyline, despite the authors final comment still undecided as to whether the book was fact or fiction!
This was unlike anything I have read before and for that a big high five! Excellent concept with the perpetrator discovering and reading a newly released book by one of his surviving victims nearly 15 years later. As the story unfolds and Jim (perpetrator) and Eve (the author and survivor) tell the story from their perspectives and we get insights into their respective personalities and how it affected them then and now.
What can I say about this book? Well a mixed review really, while I really enjoyed the plot and concept, I wasn't really looking forward to getting back to reading it. I felt a bit confused at times especially at the start of the book as I felt it jumped around a lot. Having said that it was so true to life and a frightening read that had me at the edge of my seat with my eyes covered! Personally, the thought of somebody standing over me while I am sleeping terrifies me to the core.
Thank you to all for the ARC. (3.5 stars rounded up to 4)
A really unique and fresh take on the crime thriller. I loved the main character and her journey as a survivor and now, a pursuer. This isn't quite a five star book for me but I did really enjoy it and would recommend to fans of this genre.
This is an incredible piece of work, part written as a book within about a victims search to find the serial killer who murdered her family and part written from the perspective of the serial killer living his life now and reading and reacting to the book. What’s bizarre is that you are told early on what crimes he committed and you know his identity yet reading through still has you frantically turning the pages wanting to read the story and find out more. This was very original, very well written and one of the most gripping books I’ve read in a while.