The Nothing Man

"Yes. It’s probably the most original crime thriller I’ve read this year. It’s a book within a book within a book. The narrator is the only survivor of a family massacre, carried out by a serial killer in the mid 1990s, or thereabouts. And she is now, I think, 30 and writing this book. But the serial killer was never caught. So, while she is writing the book, it flips back between her telling the story she’s writing, and the murderer reading it. It’s extremely clever! You don’t realise until the very end that she has an ulterior motive for writing this book—it is so clever, so tricky, so twisty. Catherine was very much inspired by the real case of the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo and the book by Michelle McNamara on him, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark . It’s set in her native Cork City, which is unusual. Cork is Ireland’s second biggest city and they would claim to be the real capital. It’s kind of like Manchester vs. London, Cork vs. Dublin. There’s a bit of rivalry there. But it’s a wonderful book, thrilling and compelling. It’s being released in the States shortly, where I expect it to be a massive, massive success. Let me see. I’ve met Catherine, I’ve met Brian. I’ve met Sebastian and I’ve met Anne. I know all these people. The Irish writing scene is very small. We all meet each other on the festival circuit every summer. Even if they weren’t my friends, I would still highly recommend their books. Brian is probably the one I know the least, I think I’ve only met him once. Catherine, I would have met regularly enough. Anne Enright I’ve met a handful of times, and Eoin Colfer again probably a handful of times. But they’re all tremendously supportive. And Irish writers are tremendously supportive of each other, in general, and it’s a really nice community to be part of. Everybody is, I hope, pleased for each other’s success. It’s a lovely community feeling. If somebody isn’t doing well, everybody else will get behind them and encourage them, and, you know, if they’ve been disappointed or whatever, we’ll tweet our support or do whatever we can to help each other. Ireland is small and there are a lot of writers. You can’t throw a stone here without hitting one."