Innovative & intelligent mash-up of true-crime memoir and the hunt for a real-life serial killer.
In her fourth novel Catherine Ryan Howard once again delivers on the entertainment front with an innovative and intelligent psychological thriller that combines true-crime with a reignited hunt for a serial killer. Immersive storytelling at its best, the Nothing Man is the name given by the media to a serial killer who struck five times between 2000 and 2001 in the Irish county of Cork and left no traces to enable the Gardaí to identify him. In his fifth and most heinous crime he took the lives of twelve-year-old Eve Black’s parents and her seven-year-old sister, Anna, in a trauma that eighteen years later she is still struggling to process. As a creative writing student Eve wrote of her grief and encouraged by her tutor, and motivated by the possibility that she could yet identify the perpetrator and obtain justice for her family, she has published a true-crime memoir at the age of thirty.
Sixty-three-year-old former garda and now supermarket security guard, Jim Doyle, is patrolling for shoplifters when he sees Eve’s book on the shelves and starts to get sweaty palms, for the Nothing Man is his other name, the one that nobody else should theoretically know. The renewed threat that he could be identified, the media focus on Eve’s memoir and her avowal to unmask him is like a red rag to a bull for Jim and his oversized ego. Infuriated as he is by Eve’s baiting and belittling of the Nothing Man Jim also needs to know what she remembers of the night that he murdered her family, more specifically whether she saw and could identify him. Riled by Eve’s words and news of her investigation which has been aided by original lead detective, Ed Healy, Jim draws ever closer aware that if she starts to pose too much of a threat he might have to stop her once and for all.
The book alternates between chapters of Eve’s book and Jim’s point-of-view allowing his reaction at the contents to be shown in high definition! All readers learn of Eve is through the words in her memoir or relayed from Jim’s perspective but due to the unflinching honesty of her memoir her story is surprisingly powerful. Rather than the two different styles side by side making for a jarring disconnect as they are spliced together in reality they spur each other on and ratchet up the tension. The characterisation of Jim is excellent with enough tidbits to illustrate how his colleagues viewed him during his career as a ‘put on paper’ guard through to the events of his childhood and his demeaning attitude to his wife.
Ryan Howard focuses on deconstructing the myth of the killer who terrorised Cork by picking apart serial killer tropes to reveal a man who is essentially a non-entity and primarily an unremarkable failure. By emphasising the revelation of new evidence and factoring them into the historic events it provides the reader with a credible trail of pieced together connections and gives an insight into the procedural side of the hunt which adds meat to the bones. Whilst I would have liked to have had some perspective from Jim’s wife who seemed to have suspicions about her husband I cannot fault the fitting conclusion of a postscript for the paperback publication that made for a hugely satisfying ending to a riveting novel. Having read all of Catherine Ryan Howard’s novels I continue to be impressed with her scope for pushing boundaries and continually breathing new life into the crime fiction genre. Original, astute and a delight to read.
Sixty-three-year-old former garda and now supermarket security guard, Jim Doyle, is patrolling for shoplifters when he sees Eve’s book on the shelves and starts to get sweaty palms, for the Nothing Man is his other name, the one that nobody else should theoretically know. The renewed threat that he could be identified, the media focus on Eve’s memoir and her avowal to unmask him is like a red rag to a bull for Jim and his oversized ego. Infuriated as he is by Eve’s baiting and belittling of the Nothing Man Jim also needs to know what she remembers of the night that he murdered her family, more specifically whether she saw and could identify him. Riled by Eve’s words and news of her investigation which has been aided by original lead detective, Ed Healy, Jim draws ever closer aware that if she starts to pose too much of a threat he might have to stop her once and for all.
The book alternates between chapters of Eve’s book and Jim’s point-of-view allowing his reaction at the contents to be shown in high definition! All readers learn of Eve is through the words in her memoir or relayed from Jim’s perspective but due to the unflinching honesty of her memoir her story is surprisingly powerful. Rather than the two different styles side by side making for a jarring disconnect as they are spliced together in reality they spur each other on and ratchet up the tension. The characterisation of Jim is excellent with enough tidbits to illustrate how his colleagues viewed him during his career as a ‘put on paper’ guard through to the events of his childhood and his demeaning attitude to his wife.
Ryan Howard focuses on deconstructing the myth of the killer who terrorised Cork by picking apart serial killer tropes to reveal a man who is essentially a non-entity and primarily an unremarkable failure. By emphasising the revelation of new evidence and factoring them into the historic events it provides the reader with a credible trail of pieced together connections and gives an insight into the procedural side of the hunt which adds meat to the bones. Whilst I would have liked to have had some perspective from Jim’s wife who seemed to have suspicions about her husband I cannot fault the fitting conclusion of a postscript for the paperback publication that made for a hugely satisfying ending to a riveting novel. Having read all of Catherine Ryan Howard’s novels I continue to be impressed with her scope for pushing boundaries and continually breathing new life into the crime fiction genre. Original, astute and a delight to read.