The Nothing Man – Catherine Ryan Howard
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 realises 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…
My thanks to the publishers for my review copy which I recieved through Netgalley
Eve Black is a survivor. When she was a young girl she was in the house when a killer broke into the family home and killed her parents and younger sister. Eve only survived as she had woken in the night and wasn’t in her bed when the killer looked into her room. Twenty years later Eve writes The Nothing Man. It is her memoir and a true crime book about serial killer The Nothing Man – the man responsible for the death of her family and numerous other murders in Ireland.
Jim Doyle is the security guard at a supermarket. His world is turned upside down when he spots a customer buying a copy of The Nothing Man. Years ago Jim was The Nothing Man. Technically he still is – The Nothing Man was never caught or held to account for the crimes he committed. Why is Eve Black publishing her story now? What could she have to say?
Eve is using her book to announce she is going to identify The Nothing Man. She believes the work she put in when researching his crimes has allowed her to work out the identity of the man that took her family from her. Jim realises that this cannot be allowed to happen. His life is far from ideal but there is no way he is going to allow Eve Black to make him pay for crimes he has managed to get away with for over two decades. The Nothing Man will need to be born again – one more victim is needed.
Rest assured that nothing in this review contains spoilers. The blurb and opening chapters introduce Jim and Eve and readers are made fully aware of their respective backgrounds. What I loved about this new thriller from Catherine Ryan Howard was that we know exactly who the killer is, we see the devastating legacy the killer’s crimes caused and you need to know how the killer reacts when he starts to feel a net closing in on him.
The Nothing Man (Eve’s book) covers the murder of her family. As the reader we don’t just get to read Eve’s written account of events but Catherine Ryan Howard takes us back in time to when the killer was active and committing his crimes. The narrative covers both timeframes (then and now) so we can have a comprehensive picture of the man Jim Doyle was and the man he has become. This is also the case for Eve Black who survived a home invasion and escaped the murderer to grow up in a remote cottage with her grandmother where she was sheltered from the potential of a second attack. Eve is determined to tell her story and she plans to find justice for her family and the other victims.
Reading (partially) like a true crime novel, but with lots of extra content which firmly marks it as a gripping crime fiction read, The Nowhere Man is one of those wonderful bookish delights you always hope to pick up. The characters leap out the pages and are vividly realised, the story is so engaging that you will yourself to read one more chapter as you need to know what’s coming next. As a reader you want to be picking up a book which makes you glad you read it – that’s The Nothing Man. I loved it.
The Nothing Man is published by Corvus and is currently available in Hardback, digtial and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0855N98FH/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0