The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard 

Title: The Nothing Man

Publisher: Blackstone

Published: 2020

Pages: 352

Genre: Mystery Thriller 

     I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him... 

You've just read the opening pages of The Nothing Man, the true-crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page, his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man. The more Jim reads, the more he realizes how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first...

     The Nothing Man was a book that I came across completely by chance. I was trying to work out what to read next. Aimlessly scrolling through my ebook subscription service for what was next. I had been at it for about half an hour having bounced through several genres this one came up under horror. Which if I'm slightly honest confused me as the description sounded far more mystery thriller. Anyway, what I read did pique my interest, a sort of fake true crime novel was something that seemed new to me.  It also reminded me of what I had read about real-life serial killer Dennis Rader who after reading a book about himself came out of the woodwork just to prove he wasn't dead. I looked forward to seeing how she was going to blend these genres together. And to see if she could pull off the task of making a fake crime spree seem like it had just been ripped from the headlines. 

     The author splits her work between two leads. Eve is searching for the truth, why did she survive when all his other victims did not. She is carefully crafted to be just how you would imagine such a victim. Someone who is driven by an all-consuming need to expose the Nothing man and get the answers she so greatly needs. We can find sympathy with Eve, she is not overwritten to be this complete wreck of a human being. We can witness the fire burning inside her which means we know she will stop at nothing. The dark shadow to her comes in the form of Jim Doyel the very man she has been hunting this whole time. The author has clearly devoted a great deal of time to getting her killer to seem very real to the reader. Gone are some grand Holywood-style super genius serial killer. Here he is almost so boring it's painful. I suppose we all seek some sadistic ugly monster, a person who is not quite human anymore. Maybe it helps us deal with the horrific acts these people perpetrate. But here it's all too real and for me, I think that makes it all the more terrifying. He is someone you could pass in the street and not think twice about.

 

     The narrative switches between the actions of these two leads and the true-crime book that Eve wrote. For me, it felt like getting that part in the true crime book that you never normally get. It's a more honest side to the killer's story from their point of view. His action laid bare without any form of escape into his own fantasy of what happened. It is almost like that closure we seek out in real life, the why of it all. So between these three switching points of view, it seemed to give a very balanced narrative overall. For me, it gave a very different reading experience having stripped away the who dunnit element right at the beginning. Motives came right up to the forefront and in some ways it allows us to get into their head space a lot more. Even if getting into the mind of a killer is not somewhere you would particularly want to find yourself. This is one of those books that pulls you into a very dark world and it can be hard to escape this feeling of someone breathing down your neck. So the whole thing plays out extremely well, you can easily get lost in the chase wondering just who is the cat and who is the mouse.

     All through the time, I spent with the book was far shorter than I would have liked each moment was filled with great anticipation. I loved getting wrapped up in this author's work. She seems to have crafted a book that took not only elements from the best true crime books I have read but also the current crop of thrillers. I truly look forward to the next time I delve into her work.