The Nothing Man is a book within a book: We start off being introduced to a character called Jim, who whilst working as shop security guard notices a newly published book on display - ‘The Nothing Man’ by Eve Black. Jim is immediately drawn to the book, as the title reminds him of the name that the papers had given a serial killer back at the turn of the millennium. That serial killer was him, and he feels compelled to read the book to find out what Eve knows about him…
From there we move on to the start of Eve’s book, which we read in instalments as Jim reads them (including any interruptions he gets.) The changes between the two books are delineated by different fonts, and the author’s name changes on the left hand page depending on whether you are reading Eve’s manuscript, or about Jim’s reactions to what he is reading. Eve’s book covers all of The Nothing Man’s crimes and details how she has tried to search for the man who wiped out her family nearly two decades prior.
This is a clever idea, which is brilliantly executed. I loved that the detail went down to the fact that Eve Black’s The Nothing Man had its own copyright page with ISBN! A thoroughly recommended read.
From there we move on to the start of Eve’s book, which we read in instalments as Jim reads them (including any interruptions he gets.) The changes between the two books are delineated by different fonts, and the author’s name changes on the left hand page depending on whether you are reading Eve’s manuscript, or about Jim’s reactions to what he is reading. Eve’s book covers all of The Nothing Man’s crimes and details how she has tried to search for the man who wiped out her family nearly two decades prior.
This is a clever idea, which is brilliantly executed. I loved that the detail went down to the fact that Eve Black’s The Nothing Man had its own copyright page with ISBN! A thoroughly recommended read.