For fans of true crime documentaries and Only Murders in the Building comes the chilling story of a university student's sudden disappearance, the woman who became obsessed with her case, and the crime writer who uncovered the truth about what happened… Reads like a cinematic true crime documentary. Brilliant, compelling and original." — Steve Cavanagh, award-winning author of the Eddie Flynn series From the Publisher 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. Scott-Kerr commented: "You always get a frisson of sheer pleasure when you see a supremely talented writer going up through the gears and that is precisely what Joseph has done here. After three superlative noir-ish crime thrillers featuring the beleaguered Aidan Waits, he has taken a look at the genre itself and turned it inside out. He has come up with a truly original story and an innovative way of telling it—and hasn't sacrificed one iota of suspense or excitement in so doing. I couldn't be more thrilled to be publishing True Crime Story next year—it establishes Joseph as one of the most compelling and imaginative writers in this space right now." I was crying reading this because I felt such ever-present danger for our investigator, Evelyn, and I wanted her to turn out okay. She fought so hard for her story and for the truth of Zoe. Her book and character had me INVESTED.

In a serpentine narrative that reads like a podcast, the friends, parents, and twin sister of a 19-year-old college student recall the events leading up to her disappearance as well as the criminal investigation and personal travails that followed. True crime is everywhere, and yet your book stands out because it is, in fact, fiction masquerading as true crime. There's a hint of parody in that. What were you trying to experiment with, or perhaps to prove about the genre? I'm so perplexed by the production of the audiobook. Why go the "extra mile" to add effects, or leave out identifying markers to make it unique, when it makes it harder to enjoy or understand what is happening? It was a poor stylistic choice, don't the producers understand that form follows function?

Joseph Knox

I enjoyed the engrossing, gripping, dark writing style and this smart, multi layered, extremely interesting story! The gifted Joseph Knox continues his upwards trajectory with True Crime Story forging something original and innovative." This story is tense, dark, full of twists you never see them coming, taking place in Manchester, England as like the author’s previous Aidan Waits crime thriller novels.

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?We learn about the first story by following the second one, centred on Evelyn Mitchell, a writer acquainted with Joseph Knox. At some point, she became obsessed with what happened to Zoe Nolan and started collecting thorough interviews with anyone and everyone who knew Zoe. Slowly but surely, she built up a picture from these testimonies which contradicted the official version of events. To begin with, it becomes clear fairly early on that Zoe Nolan is far from being a young little angel everyone has been incessantly crying over. The more digging Evelyn does into the case, the more interviews she collects from the people surrounding Zoe, the muddier the picture around her innocence becomes, and the closer we get to unearthing secrets no normal person should have. It took some time for me to understand how this book worked. I was initially confused with the author inserting himself in the story but when I finally got it, it was brilliant! The ending was terrific. As it approached, I found myself compelled to keep listening. I just wanted to know who was responsible for Zoe Nolan’s disappearance. Evelyn enlists the help of Joseph Knox, a well known crime author (and author of this book). She hopes that between the two of them, they can figure out the secrets surrounding Zoe’s disappearance. As Joseph reads more of what Evelyn has written so far and offers his theories, Evelyn starts to feel watched...and thinks someone close to the book may not want the story to be told.