The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard – Book review

Well, I absolutely devoured The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard! This brilliant psychological thriller is set in Cork, Ireland and has the most tantalising premise. The story is told from two point of views: Eve Black, whose family was murdered when she was twelve and Jim Doyle, the murderer who thought he got away with it…

Opening sentence: Jim was on patrol.

Eve & Jim

What made The Nothing Man feel like such a fresh take on a psychological thriller was the way that the two characters are linked. Eve’s chapters come in the form of the book she has written about her experience. Being a terrible incident that happened locally, her book is being promoted heavily all over Cork, so it was only a matter of time before Jim, who still live in Cork, picked it up, and horrifyingly realises he is reading about himself.

Ever since he’d discovered the existence of The Nothing Man, he’d felt himself oscillating between paranoid caution and confident nonchalance.

The secret he has kept (and murders he got away with) for so many years is now in the public arena and, what’s more, Eve is asking the public to mine their memories. She is determined to find the man who killed her family. She teams up with detective Ed Healy, who worked on the original case, and Jim feels the net growing ever tighter.

It’s this dynamic that keeps the pace so taught and heady with anticipation throughout The Nothing Man – I was literally on the edge of my seat reading and wondering how Eve and Jim’s stories would come together!

A layered psychological thriller

I’m obsessed with descriptions of grief. I collect them, literally. I copy them down into a notebook.

Another great element to the plot was Eve coming to terms with what happened to her and grieving for her family. Her grief is explored in such a touching way, it really makes you connect with character and adds depth.

The Nothing Man makes another interesting point: the injustice that means people are far more likely to know the names of serial killers than their victims. This was a theme explored in another book I read not long ago, Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater. I think it’s such an important point and resonated with me then too.

Irish author Catherine Ryan Howard is new to me and I am heading straight down to the library to get another of her books. I loved her writing style, tone and clever plotting. If anyone has any recommendations from her, let me know!

• Get your copy of The Nothing Man here;
• Published by Corvus 2020;
• 341 pages;
• My rating: