The Nothing Man
At the age of twelve, Eve Black was the only member of her family to survive an encounter with serial attacker the Nothing Man. Now an adult, she is obsessed with identifying the man who destroyed her life.
Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle has just started reading The Nothing Man--the true-crime memoir Eve has written about her efforts to track down her family's killer. As he turns each page, his rage grows. Because Jim's not just interested in reading about the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man.
Jim soon begins to realize 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 ...
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Community Reviews
The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
261 pages
What’s it about?
Eve Black’s whole family was killed by “The Nothing Man” but somehow she survived the attack. Eve has spent two decades hiding her identity and trying to forget about that night. On an impulse Eve decides to write about what happened to her family on the night they were attacked. This writing assignment eventually becomes a well researched book about “ The Nothing Man". Her hope is to lure the killer out of hiding and finally make him pay for what he did.
What did it make me think about?
Am I going to be able to sleep tonight?
Should I read it?
This was a book club pick- so not one I would normally have chosen. I love a psychological thriller and this book does keep you at the edge of your seat, but it was a little scarier than I normally like my books. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a scary book. I must add- when we met as a group I found this scarier than most....
Quote-
“And if I somehow found a way in the future to make a family of my own- something that, when I thought about all the steps I would need to happen, seemed utterly impossible- I would never let them go anywhere without me. I'd be too scared to. Because even when you were at home, altogether, you still weren't safe."
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It was poetic really. He was about to walk up to the woman who'd made it her mission to find him and failed at it. Instead, he was coming to her.
When Eve Black was twelve years old a serial killer murdered her whole family leaving her as the only survivor. Now as an adult she has written a book to generate publicity about the case and hopefully solve her family's murder. The book becomes a huge hit and winds up everywhere, including the hands of the man who committed the crimes and he's not happy with it.
This book had a great premise but what made it stand out is that the everything is told from the killer's point of view as he reads the book that was written about him. We get both the book itself and his reactions to it, plus his inner thoughts and interactions with the rest of the world. The book within a book was fine, but not nearly as interesting though I understand that it wasn't the main focus. It definitely kept me reading.
I will say that I knew exactly how this book was going to end. This isn't a bad thing at all but it felt a bit easy to me, maybe I've been reading too many thrillers. I also would have liked to get to know Eve a bit more, I didn't feel a super strong connection to her. This still was a very solid, not generic book.
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