Kindle British & Irish Mystery Book Club discussion

Jan 2025 Group Read - True Crime Story by Joseph Knox

"In the early hours of Saturday 17 December 2011, Zoe Nolan, a nineteen-year-old Manchester University student, walked out of a party taking place in the shared accommodation where she had been living for three months.

She was never seen again.

Seven years after her disappearance, struggling writer Evelyn Mitchell finds herself drawn into the mystery. Through interviews with Zoe's closest friends and family, she begins piecing together what really happened in 2011. But where some versions of events overlap, aligning perfectly with one another, others stand in stark contrast, giving rise to troubling inconsistencies.

Shaken by revelations of Zoe's secret life, and stalked by a figure from the shadows, Evelyn turns to crime writer Joseph Knox to help make sense of a case where everyone has something to hide.

Zoe Nolan may be missing presumed dead, but her story is only just beginning"

Link to book on Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3PiUh7G
Discussion Leader Jim Bowen

True Crime Story was an odd read. I was confused starting it, not certain if it was fiction or a fictionalized real-life story. Reading a book of only character statements made me wonder often if I wanted to finish it, as I only had characters contradicting each other repeatedly, without thoughts, feelings, descriptions of body language, mood, for guidance to them. What they wrote could be self-justification and avoiding self-incrimination. No authority figures presented evidence in a clear form as in police procedurals and discoveries among civilian detectives. I missed an author's control of plot and characters.

The ending was disappointing and unfair, as no believable evidence allowed the reader to come to reasonable conclusions about who was guilty in the "crime" of Zoe's disappearance. I wasn't certain she was dead and half expected her to show up at the end of the book. I'm not convinced that she was the burned female body in the criminal's burned house as the characters were also not convinced.

I'm not certain this style of fiction can be called a murder mystery, without a body, visible investigation, clues, real conclusions about what happened to the supposed "victim." It's more a psychological case study of an event told by a number of people, but not giving confirmed information about any of them or about the event. Implications fill the pages without proof.

I prefer mysteries with a strong author's voice leading and misleading me among the evidence to a clear conclusion on who did what to whom and why. I want characters fully developed so I learn who and what they are as the story develops along an identifiable plot curve. I want a fair chance at solving the story questions before the ending and at logical acceptance of the answers given by the author.

If this is the direction of modern crime novels, I'm too old-fashioned in my tastes to enjoy them. I don't know why I finished reading this confusing, unsatisfying book, but I did. Perhaps it deserves stars for that reason alone, but I have no idea what number to give it.

Pat wrote: "True Crime Story was an odd read. I was confused starting it, not certain if it was fiction or a fictionalized real-life story. Reading a book of only character statements made me wonder often if I..." This is why I liked it.It wasn’t clear what was going on, with so many unreliable (and self-serving) witnesses.