So they way this one is written it took me a bit to get into the story. It was good but the tone and pace of the writing took some getting use to.

I struggled getting into this one from the start. I think the characters need a bit more development to really allow me to feel connected. I'd definitely try more from Knox, though, as he's clearly a great writer with excellent ideas.

This book was just OK for me. I found myself struggling to get connected to the story and stay there. I think part of it is, there's very little character development, so you don't really feel like you truly know any of the characters and, therefore, don't know who to root for. I did find the mystery interesting and wasn't able to guess who was behind things until very close to the final reveal. I was very excited at the premise of this book. So I guess I was just left feeling a little let down with the reality of it.

o say that true crime has exploded in the past few years may be an understatement. Podcasts, in particular, have really helped catalyze people’s interests in true crime. Joseph Knox’s new novel True Crime Story explores the genre through an unconventional format. The fictional book is composed of interviews, letters and more surrounding the disappearance of college student Zoe Nolan. Murder & Mayhem had a chance to talk with Knox about his book.



Note: Interview is edited for length and clarity.

Murder & Mayhem: When did you know you wanted to be a mystery writer or a writer in general?

Knox: I certainly knew I wanted to be a writer from very early on in life before wanting to write mysteries. I wanted to become a writer because I was a terrible insomniac, when I was a kid. So I would just read whatever books were around the house because I had just done everything else. I was getting into trouble because I was wandering around the house.

We tended to just have things that were inherited from grandparents who had passed away. It was all these leather bound weighty tomes: Charles Dickens, the Brontës, and Sherlock Holmes. I became a huge reader of all of that, but then I could never get new stuff. That was really why I started writing from a young age was because I was just trying to entertain myself because I'd read everything that we had.

I think mystery was definitely for me a way of making my writing more adult and bringing in much more grown up ideas, because when I was writing, I did not have a lot of life experience.

But I came to it very naturally because I got dumped by a girl. And by Googling what you should do when you got a broken heart, I found the answer that you should watch Casablanca. And so, I watched Casablanca. It became my favorite film ever and still is to this day. It just made me fall in love with the work of Humphrey Bogart. He played Philip Marlow, Sam Spade, and Dick Steel.

I just discovered all these films and then discovered that they were novels. I just loved the way they presented their ideas. The noir novel seemed like such a sleek delivery method for things you want to say.

Sign up for the Murder & Mayhem newsletter and get the best mystery and thriller recommendations delivered straight to your inbox.

Enter your email address
Subscribe

Yes! I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks.
True Crime Story by Joseph Knox
True Crime Story
By Joseph Knox

Buy Now


I read that the idea for True Crime Story originated from an oral history book about L.A. singer/songwriter Warren Zevon. Could you tell me what appealed to you about the format?

I originally had the idea for True Crime Story before I had written my other novels (the Aidan Waits Trilogy). I almost wrote those books in response to this idea, but I knew instinctively that this idea would take a lot of discipline. It would take an understanding of these different voices; each one would need its own, feel its own rhythm, its own sense of humor. They would have to really feel true or the book would fall apart. I knew I wasn't a good enough writer to do that at the time and that is why I wrote three books prior to this.

I wanted to write from all these different perspectives. I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to see what would happen when I tried because I never had. There was a great wide challenge for me that I found incredibly freeing.

Sirens by Joseph Knox, book one of the Aiden Waite Thriller series
Sirens
By Joseph Knox

Buy Now

What made you decide on the true crime idea?

When I originally had the idea, I did not attach true crime to it. It was just in my mind that it would be a novel of all these voices remembering certain events, each of them differing slightly, and the reader having to work out what the true reality was.

In the intervening years, true crime exploded and became this dominant force, and it was really only just as I began to write the book, I decided to myself, “Of course, it should be like a true crime podcast.”

In pursuit of trying to make it the most realistic archetype [of a true crime story] possible, I knew that it would have to focus on the murder or disappearance of a young woman. I suppose from there, it became a challenge of: how do you do that in a very aware way? How do you discuss problems of male entitlement, male power games, gaslighting, manipulation, and all of these things?

The Smiling Man by Joseph Knox
The Smiling Man
By Joseph Knox

Buy Now


Sign up for the Murder & Mayhem newsletter and get the best mystery and thriller recommendations delivered straight to your inbox.

Enter your email address
Subscribe

Yes! I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks.
I read that some people have taken this book for a work of non-fiction instead of fiction. Could you tell us about that?

There have been a few people who have reacted that way. [When discussing bad reviews], this woman reviewed the book sincerely believing that the character of Joseph Knox, [was real]— I won't spoil anything, but he’s not presented in the most favorable winds in the book. He very much plays into the book's exploration of male power games, manipulation, and gaslighting.

If someone were to read the book sincerely, thinking all the things presented are true, they would come away from it with a very bad idea of me, and this woman's review was exactly that. But I had to just take that as a compliment. I wear that one star review with pride. Because I think if she read the book and believed it, then I did my job.

I have had some emails as well of people who seem disappointed in me for what I've done. When I get those emails, I respond in character to keep it going as long as possible. I don't say anything mean. I'm not trying to play a prank, but I just respond by saying, “Well, you don't know. You weren't there!” At some point, I'm sure they will twig and we’ll laugh about it.

The Sleepwalker by Joseph Knox
The Sleepwalker
By Joseph Knox

Buy Now

Did you expect people to have this reaction?

I must say to be perfectly honest, I did not think about it.


Thank you so much to Joseph Knox for talking to us about True Crime Story!

This was such a departure from the authors previous books and so interesting that it’s a blend between fact and fiction. Lines are very blurry indeed. This was dramatic and engaging

Didn't capture my attention and engagement. Interested in trying it again though and hopefully it will take.

This book is a story of a group of friends and what happens to them after a terrible event. One of the characters says that if someone wrote their story it would be people and their lost dreams (paraphrased) and actually that is what this book is. I could not read it fast enough to find out what the end of the story was and when I got there, I must admit it was a little anticlimactic. I had (right at the end) figured out who was responsible for the event via process of elimination, but had not seen the final twist coming. That being said, I don't understand why the "author" had to die--I really think the ending would have been more satisfying if she could have written the book and then decided not to publish, especially SPOLER ALERT especially as the author was pregnant, I found that disturbing and very sad--almost more than anything else in the book.

An interesting story line with the feel of a real murder investigation! So many characters that it did become difficult at times to keep track! It was laid out so well that I kept thinking it was a story of a true crime! So many different elements going on within the story! A group of college students reeling from Zoe, one of their own going missing, each processes it in their own way. The twin sister of Zoe battling with not being close but also missing her dearly and determined to find out what really happened. At the heart of it all is Evelyn who is investigating and interviewing them all in order to find out what really happened and is writing a book. Knox is the author of the book as himself, emailing back to Evelyn with notes and questions about the book as she interviews each person involved. So many other characters but you will need to read the book to find out more!
Thank you netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was unlike any other book I've ever read. With a name like True Crime Story there were so many times I had to say "oh man is this really true or is it just really good fiction?" This was my first Joseph Knox book and although I would have liked a different writing style I still enjoyed this book. The writing style is that each character is interviewed and you are basically reading a transcript of their interview, spliced with other interviews of other characters and then you also get some emails back and forth between the two writers and a few newspaper articles. I found that a little weird as someone used to reading the details and more about what the characters are doing/what they look like, etc. I really like those details and feel like that adds to the story. At first I also thought it was hard to keep track of the characters and who was who with this writing style but I can see why the author wrote it this way and that it probably had to do with making it feel like you were really reading a true crime story. It was definitely interesting enough to keep my attention and I will be checking out more of this author's work.

This book had the flavor of true crime podcast and a true crime non-fiction in a fictional book, and I was so here for it. I loved this book!

Wow oh wow did I love this! I will just blanket recommend this as an audiobook bc it’s probably one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to! It’s full cast, with each person in the story having their own narrator (and there’s a lot we’re talking 10+) the audiobook also does typing sounds for the email correspondence! Ughhh so good! Also I did read some of the physical ebook, which I did think was good but the audio really brings it to life!

The first thing I want to say right off the bat was I was confused when I first started reading! The interesting thing about this is the author writes himself into the book as one of the main characters! 🤯 I did not understand what I was reading at first, but once I figured that out (it’s fiction, but reads nonfiction) I was hooooookkkkeed!

The main storyline is author Evelyn Mitchell researching an unsolved case of a missing girl Zoe Nolan, filled with sex scandals, kidnappings, drugs, secret obsessions & more. She’s emailing with Joseph Knox (aka the actual author of the book) sharing with him her research and the interviews she conducted with witnesses and friends, so she can compile it into a novel.

What made this book so good for me was how similar this felt to a true crime podcast. I kept forgetting that Zoe’s story is a work of fiction and not an active open case! Also, the way information was introduced little by little, connecting dots and then completely breaking ties, was fantastic! We’d get a little nugget of important info, and I wouldn’t think anything of it, and then here it comes back around, full circle!

My only critique is the ending, it felt rushed and I wasn’t completely sold on the “baddie.” I could see where he was going, but I felt a little underwhelmed and it didn’t make a whole lot of since to me! But again, the book as a whole is soooo juicy and good I can totally over look it!

I really hope this author writes more along these lines bc I would pick up and read more! And to whoever the production team is for the audiobook, y’all are the best! 10/10 would recommend this book to friends!

I was too late to download this after having issues with the screen on my phone but I ordered after some good reviews and I'm a bit baffled by them. The premise seems great but the execution wasn't there in the slightest. I didn't even make it halfway tho I tried more than once. I don't think it focused on the right characters and not for the right Amount of time. It just didn't work for me.

I thought I would like this book more than I did when I requested it. I was just not in the right mood to read it right now. I enjoy crime stories just not the way this one was set up.

This novel is full of suspects, hidden lives, and disturbing scenes. It is very much like a true crime podcast, with a variety of points of view including those from fellow students, the police, and family. From the beginning, the content is gritty and the entanglements within relationships and the media continue to the end. This is a unique reading experience.

I listened to the released audiobook and followed along with the e-galley in places. There are more than ten voice actors (including the author) for the audiobook. I recommend it, especially with the text.

Thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the e-galley. My reviews and ratings are my own.

Spoilers Ahead
TW/CW: teacher/student relationship; urine sprayed on a person; kidnapping; assault; murder; sexual harassment; emotional abuse; infidelity; drug distribution and use;

True crime stories make me feel like I'm in Rear Window or driving past a car accident. You want to look away but you just can't. This successfully kept me from keeping my eyes on the road. My advice: don't read at night.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC which I received in return for an honest review.

Taking a page from Daisy Jones and the Six, a rockumentary about a made-up rock band, Knox’s latest novel, True Crime Story, uses the documentary journalism style to report about a missing college girl. The story is dark and deadly and takes place in Manchester, England. The story is told in a series of short, punchy interview excerpts from the survivors of Zoe’s disappearance, as you hear them talk to the interviewer, Evelyn, who also exchanges emails with our author, Joseph Knox, the reader isn’t explicitly told whether it’s fact or fiction or whether this is yet another well-publicized case of a missing girl. The interview technique of telling this story works well because all these small things are how people remember things and each person has a distinctly different perspective. All in all, well done.

Written in a very convincing true crime format, this compelling novel is impossible to put down! While I haven't read the author's previous novels, he inserts himself here to only add to the authentic feeling with this unconventional format comprising of emails, photographs, and interview transcripts to relay the story of the missing girl, Zoe Nolan. Not long after her 19th birthday, Zoe goes missing from a party thrown in her university flat.

An author, a friend of Knox, decides to dive into investigating it though seven years have since passed. The pieces unfold right before the reader's eyes, giving this a genuine and rather immediate air. It's a riveting read that song has the reader jumping in multiple directions - and with an ending that certainly surprised me! I really enjoyed this one from start to finish. Despite the format, the characters all come to life and the way it all unfolds only further sells the veracity of the story. It's quite well-done!. It has the sensationalism of a Netflix documentary and manages to bring the setting, time period and characters all vividly to life. It's a gripping read - I think that I read the latter half in just one sitting! The attention to detail and the author's own presence here reminds me a bit of Richard Chizmar's CHASING THE BOOGEYMAN which I read earlier this year. I imagine that fans of that title will enjoyed this one equally as much.

This is my first experience with Knox's writing, but I am eager now to pick up his debut novel and see what it's all about. And I am definitely curious to see what he will follow this one up with! It's well done and the December setting made this feel like a great - albeit murdery- Christmas read!

Joseph Knox departs from his internationally bestselling Aidan Waits series to pen TRUE CRIME STORY, an inventive and wildly creative thriller about the missing girls who don’t come back.

“In the early hours of Saturday, December 17, 2011, Zoe Nolan, a nineteen-year-old University of Manchester 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.” So begins the manuscript sent to Knox by his friend and fellow author, Evelyn Mitchell. Over lengthy conversations about genre and craft, they long shared many thoughts on the popularity of serial killers in crime fiction and the genre's wayward focus on the killers rather than the victims. But even Knox knows that while Zoe’s story is certainly sad, it is far from sensational, as “girls [go] missing all the time.” So when Evelyn becomes obsessed with the story following an unexpected cancer diagnosis, Knox does his best to be supportive, even when his own career takes off and he loses touch with her, save a few emails here and there.

On June 25, 2018, an email arrives in Knox’s inbox with the subject line “True Crime Story” and a collection of interviews between Evelyn and Zoe’s immediate family, friends and acquaintances. For almost a year, Evelyn had tracked down everyone who knew, cared about and was involved with Zoe, interviewing anyone who agreed to speak with her. Rather than unpacking a typical missing-girl story, she found something much more shocking: a complex, contradictory picture of bitter disappointments, an unloving boyfriend, unrelenting parental pressure, a destructive, competitive sister relationship, and a mysterious “Shadow Man” who may or may not have been stalking Zoe before her disappearance.

By March 25, 2019, Zoe remains missing, Evelyn herself is deceased, and Knox has taken up the reins of her investigation, finishing the epic, messy breakdown of the life and disappearance of Zoe Nolan. TRUE CRIME STORY, written as a collection of interviews, emails and fictional statements from both Knox and his publisher, Sourcebooks, is the result of his and Evelyn’s interviews, fictionalized but made to look like a true account.

Zoe was a talented singer whose father raised her to be famous, often pitting her and her twin, Kimberly, against one another by highlighting Zoe’s numerous talents and more or less ignoring Kimberly. Following a horrible audition, Zoe attempts suicide and ends up attending the University of Manchester, which is where Kimberly had intended to make a fresh start as herself, not as the lesser Zoe. Already their relationship as college classmates is off to a tense start when Zoe finds an obsessive best friend, Liu; a mediocre boyfriend, Andrew; and a bright-eyed, naive friend, Fintan. Rounding out their friend group is Jai, Andrew’s roommate.

Over the first three months of the semester, the six young men and women drink heavily, party at clubs, complain about classwork and clash with their fellow classmates. Through it all, mysterious and alarming events plague Zoe: the theft of her undergarments, the release of a sex tape, a burgeoning drug problem, a potentially haunted apartment and a never-ending assault on the girls’ apartment buzzer.

As interviews with the gang --- as well as Zoe’s parents, the detectives assigned to the case and other supporting characters --- unfold, Knox and Evelyn uncover a lot of hidden resentments and betrayals, each more shocking than the last, making Zoe’s disappearance not only understandable, but almost inevitable. Knox the author (not to be confused with Knox the character) not only dishes out mind-blowing twists and turns, he positions each interview against the others, making for an utterly unputdownable conversation between several unlikable, unreliable, clearly biased characters, each desperate to put their own spin on Zoe’s story and be the main character. This is a totally unconventional, highly ambitious thriller, one that Knox meets with cleverness, ingenuity and a whole lot of control over his uncontrollable cast.

TRUE CRIME STORY is a tricky book to summarize. The unusual format is initially difficult to digest and requires a suspension of disbelief to work. But when it does, it becomes like nothing you’ve ever read before in all the best ways. The mystery at the heart of the novel is excellent, ripped from the headlines, but it’s Knox’s characters and the things they inadvertently reveal about themselves and one another that make it so riveting. Knox has a clear talent for voice, to the point that each character is so distinct that I didn’t even need to read the names to know who was talking. But more than that is his ability to put one character’s story up against another’s and force readers to determine who is telling the truth or who has more to lose from the truth being revealed. Who you side with says just as much about you as it does Knox’s characters; in a wide, diverse cast, he never fails to remind us that we, too, are a cog in the machine, each with our own biases and perceptions.

I’d recommend going into this one completely blind. To know too much would be a disservice to yourself as a reader, but also to the clever construction of Knox’s book and the aim of this “true crime” story. The mechanism won’t work for everyone, but if you loved the format of DAISY JONES & THE SIX and the thrillers of Alice Feeney, you’re sure to find a new favorite in TRUE CRIME STORY.

Seven years ago, Zoe Nolan disappeared. She walked out of her dorm suite during a party after publicly fighting with her boyfriend. Since that night nothing has been heard of her and the case has gone cold. But now someone is taking notice. Eve Mitchell has heard about the case and is making it the centerpiece of her new book. She has been interviewing the police involved as well as family and friends. She sends her book in chapters as she finishes them to her mentor and friend, Joseph. He gives her advice which she blithely ignores as she writes the book her way.
Zoe was eighteen and had been at university for only a couple of months. She was a singer and her family had always considered her destined for fame and fortune. Her twin sister, Kim, always felt left out of the family and does whatever she can to distinguish herself from Zoe. She is appalled when Zoe decides to come to the university Kim has picked for herself to get away, and even more appalled when her father arranges for the girls to share a dorm suite.

The story of Zoe's disappearance is told in bits and pieces from various sources. There is the boyfriend, a rich kid who wasn't really that interested in Zoe. There is the Muslim boy who is victimized for his differences. There is the over helpful guy who is always there whether anyone wanted him there or not. There is the Oriental roommate who loves drama and finds Zoe to be a rich source of it. There is the professor who may or may not have been in Zoe's life as more than a professor. There is her overbearing father and mousy mother. Each has a piece of the story and as Eve puts it together, danger seems to be coming for her. Can she solve the mystery?

This is a fascinating novel that breaks the rules. It is told from multiple viewpoints, a book within a book and it is up to the reader to decide what is true and what is false. There are discoveries and there are unreliable narrators. Through it all, the reader starts to glimpse what may have happened that night to Zoe. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

I tried to read it twice and really could not get past the 20% mark. Both times! Unlike a lot of reviewers who commented that they found it hard to tell fact from fiction, I found the narration rather contrived and simply did not read like some "real report"!

I enjoy true crime, both on TV and in podcasts, and had high hopes for this one, but...

Thank you, NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.