Reader Reviews

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Kathleen Q. (Quincy, MA)

True Crime Story - Reads like true crime
This book was excellent! The style of writing was nothing like I've read before. It reads like the transcript to an interrogation and investigation. Clear and concise so I never had to go back and re-read anything. It was done so well I had to keep reminding myself that it was actually fiction and not a true crime investigation. This book is excellent for anyone who is a crime or true crime fanatic.
Some interesting twists that kept me reading far into the night. I highly recommend this book, and hope there are more to come from this author!

Linda W. (Arlington, TX)

RIVETING
The cover says True Crime Story A Novel, but on the first pages the author and publisher present this not as a novel but as transcripts about a true crime. So which it it?
By page 30, I didn't care, I just wanted to keep reading.
Zoe disappears from a party in her third month at university, but this isn't a police procedural. The plot unfolds as transcripts of interviews with Zoe's friends and family, telling what they know or thought about events. Each one has their own distinct voice and they all gossip and criticize each other, so the reader gets to know them well. It's a different, fascinating approach to a mystery, and I couldn't put it down.

Amy P. (Boulder City, NV)

True or Story?
Is it true? Or is it just a story? Two questions I asked myself repeatedly as I read and reread this ARC. This is one of the best books I've recently read, and I found its unique format very engaging. Presented in a series of interview, Knox invites the reader to participate in gleaning clues and sorting through red herrings. The characters were well developed, and although I thought some were truly unlikable and unreliable, they were certainly believable. When the author Knox enters the story as a consultant, fact and fiction are blended and blurred, and the reader is left wondering yet again…Is it true or "just a story"? Puzzle fans will love it!

Wendy A. (Durham, NC)

True Crime- - fact or fiction
It's a unique format for a "true crime" novel. It almost drove me crazy at the start. I felt like I needed a whiteboard or a cork board to keep track of all the personalities interviewed. We will never know if the transcriptions are authentic or a little bit of fiction. So, I asked myself if any harm had been done to the reader if the transcripts were, indeed, fictionalized. But in the end, who cares? It was a great read, albeit a slow page-turner, as I was trying to see through the interviewees. I re-read a lot of the entries a second, even a third time. So, if you are a fan of crime novels, try your hand at this one! You won't see it coming! Great book club exercise if you use a whiteboard or cork board!

Patricia T. (Fallbrook, CA)

True Crime Story, by Joseph Knox
I have just finished reading True Crime Story. Gripping! It is set at Manchester University in Northern England, and starts innocuously enough with a student disappearance just before the Christmas holidays. Not necessarily a major crime, and the Police are informed, but this is not a standard police procedural, and the missing girl, Zoe Nolan, is not quite the ordinary student she seemed to be at first. She also has an identical twin, also a student at the Uni, which of course complicates things.

The book progresses by means of a series of interviews with all her friends, fellow students, family, and staff, brilliantly edited and arranged to provoke doubts, and send the reader off in all directions. Gradually all the characters reveal themselves with their own words. Who knew what, and when. Will she ever turn up?

This is one of the most original books I have read in a long time, because of the format. It is different, feels real, as if it could actually be a "True Crime Story". Can't wait to read Sirens, the author's debut novel, don't know how I missed it.

Susan S. (Lafayette, CA)

Very clever mystery
This is a compelling mystery in which an attempt is being made to solve the question of what happened to a young woman who disappeared 10 years previously. It is told almost exclusively via interviews with various people who knew her. One thing I really liked is that I was not actually certain that all of the interviewees were telling the truth, and furthermore, assumptions I made about who might be lying and who might not be turned out to be wrong for several characters. It is very cleverly constructed, and once I found out what the actual solution was, I wanted to go back and read some parts again, knowing now where I had been misled. 

...13 more reader reviews

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