The Nothing Man

Starred review from August 10, 2020
Between 2000 and 2001 in County Cork, Ireland, the Nothing Man, the villain of this fiendishly clever psychological thriller from Edgar finalist Howard (The Liar’s Girl), raped, tortured, and—toward the end of his spree—killed his victims. After the Nothing Man killed 12-year-old Eve Black’s parents and seven-year-old sister, the murders stopped. Now, 18 years later, Eve has published a memoir, in which she writes: “I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him.” Jim
, a security guard in his 50s, spots Eve’s book at the shopping mall where he works. After opening a copy (“The Nothing Man. His other name. The one the newspapers had given him. The one no one knew belonged to him”), Jim begins to read. Chapters alternate between passages from Eve’s book and Jim’s reaction to them. The stakes rise with the publication of a revised, second edition of the memoir, which contains new revelations. Howard uses serial killer tropes in original and surprising ways in this tour de force. Agent: Jane Gregory, David Higham Assoc. (U.K.).