The Nothing Man - Catherine Ryan Howard

Thriller

Rating: 8.5/10

Everybody lies. Everybody has secrets. Everybody has done bad things.

Eve was the girl who survived the Nothing Man.  Now she’s the woman who is going to catch the unknown killer who destroyed her family and bring him to justice. Whose idea of justice remains blurry for much of the novel.

Supermarket security guard Jim casually picks up a copy of the Nothing Man, a true crime memoir written by Eve about the killer that slaughtered her family when she was twelve. Turns out Jim has no interest in reading about the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man.  And frankly he doesn’t much like the way she is talking about him.  She’s practically forcing him to come out of retirement to kill his most famous survivor.  One is left to wonder if she is in fact purposely luring him out.

The author did a stellar job of crafting the book within a book format, having the killer read the victims account of his crimes, his desperation to get to the end to see if she figured out it was him is palpable. Absolutely gripping and chilling, with twists that will leave you stunned.

This novel is an astute juxtaposition of predator and prey unlike any I have read before.

Footnote: One of the scenes that gave me pause is one where Eve attends a lecture on true crime.  The teacher decides to gauge the existing knowledge of those in attendance by asking for anyone who can name a serial killer to raise their hand.  Everyone did.  Then she asked them to raise their hand if they knew the names of their victims. No hands went up.

Book Pairing(s): Notes On An Execution by Danya Kukafka, No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield, And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling