Audiobook Review: True Crime Story | Joseph Knox

This is a challenging book to review without spoilers but I am going to do my best because you’ll get the most out of it if you don’t know the twists and turns. This is a unique book, both in the narrative structure and how it’s presented. The audiobook is absolutely the right format for this book. It not only has a very full cast recording, but the book often reads like a podcast or something in the recorded media format and the audiobook enhanced the experience of the book.

Set in Manchester, UK in 2011, the story twists upon true crime investigations and podcasts that permeate popular culture. Zoe Nolan was 19 and a student at the University of Manchester when she disappeared after a drunken Christmas party. She was a music major, had a great group of friends, and a serious boyfriend. She lived with her twin sister, Kim, and two other students, though the sisters had intended to go to separate colleges. There are a variety of characters and they all have something to hide, making the book filled with cliffhangers as perspectives shift.

As with so many true crime stories, everyone who consumes the case inserts their own perspective into it:

“Everyone who looked at her saw something different. Some of them saw what they wanted to, some of them saw their worst nightmare.”

The book unfolds in a unique and fascinating format, filled with interviews, personal accounts, news, details from the investigation, witness statements, and other documents. As each new document or resource is revealed, so is another clue to the broader story. The author, Joseph Knox, plays a role within the story as an investigator. Evelyn Mitchell is another investigator luring Knox into the twisted story by emailing him sections of the book as she writes it. We learn upfront that Mitchell was killed, and Knox has taken over finishing the book and publishing it.

The book is filled with different viewpoints and perspectives. Everyone reacts to Zoe and the crime in a different way and sees what they want to. The reading experience is strange and feels off-kilter. The book itself is somewhat addictive and at other times repulsive, but always pulls the reader back in (not unlike a real true crime story).

The authenticity Knox has created fascinated me. At one point I did search for Zoe Nolan because it seemed like this must be based on a real case. Knox, I feel safe assuming, intended this to be the cast. Isn’t all true crime coverage a blend of fact and fiction? Here, the blend favors fiction, but even with real cases there is an element of grand sensationalism that occurs through coverage in pop culture.

The book delivers best on innovation in the narrative format and the broader message. The crime story itself, while intriguing, eventually felt like it took a backseat to the structure of the book. A compelling story with a novel and fascinating approach to story-telling.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and Libro FM for my copies. Opinions are my own.

About the Book | True Crime Story

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. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

About the Author | Joseph Knox

Joseph Knox was born and raised in and around Stoke and Manchester, where he worked in bars and bookshops before moving to London. 

He reads, writes and runs compulsively.