Evie is currently doing research for her next book, one she hopes will balance the scales. It's definitely about the victim....a Manchester university student named Zoe Nolan who disappeared in 2011. As days turn into weeks and then years there is no word or sign of Zoe. Everyone has tried to move on, most not being able to let go of the trauma they had endured. Then suddenly, out of the blue, close to the anniversary of the disappearance, they are all jolted by information none of them had ever known. Why now? What the novel does really well is explore how authors investigating a crime — getting caught up in it — can color not only what they write, but also what happens. In this case Evelyn actually causes the ending. She is an active part of the story. On the other hand, the Joseph Knox character uses his position to conceal his own involvement in a death. All in all it becomes metafiction at its weirdest and best.

I enjoyed the engrossing, gripping, dark writing style and this smart, multi layered, extremely interesting story! All the principals in the story are at each other’s throats, blaming each other, and the internet is outing these people too. As the story goes on, we are heading done different directions, chasing one red herring after another from the creepy professor who dates and dumps his students to the creepy father who favors Zoe over Kim, to the jealous less-well-known twin sister, to the missing underwear, to the exposed sex tape, to the sinister shadow, to the white van that kidnapped Kim.

Another factor I'm interested in is the concept of "true" crime itself. Is anything ever really empirically true once it's been remembered by one person, recorded by another, written down by yet another, edited by a fourth, read and interpreted by a fifth, etc., etc. Now that we’ve gotten the peculiarity of True Crime Story out of the way and know to look at it as a work of pure fiction (there is no Zoe Nolan true story to speak of), there is a logical question which can’t help but follow: is the story itself actually any good? Being more grounded in reality, Joseph Knox certainly has less room to manoeuvre than he would have had otherwise, but I believe he still manages to do a lot with it. I loved Joseph Knox’s The Smiling Man, so when I saw that he had written this stand-alone, True Crime Story, I was really excited to read it. 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.

It seems like Zoe Nolan is missing, she’s presumed death: but her story is just only the beginning. Oakes ( The Nones Are Alright) organizes her work into several provocative categories of identity, including "Barren," "Angry," "Crazy," "Butch/Femme/Other" and "Alone." Her subjects are sometimes officially saints: women who are now venerated by the Catholic Church and other religious groups. But all of them are gloriously messy humans who, during their lifetimes, elicited powerful reactions in the (mostly male) people who had control over their lives. The characters were all obnoxious and terrible in their own ways, and I felt like there was way too much focus on them when the story should’ve focused more on Zoe. I understand that these folks were in her life, but it was too much insincerity. 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. However I cannot honestly say that I got as much pleasure as I was hoping for reading this. I came to this as a fan of Joe Knox's Aidan Waits stories. However here the narrative style of hopping between contributors was not one I really liked. I also felt that the first third at least was fairly slow. Certainly the pace and tension improved significantly from around halfway through.

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I must stress this is not a bad read. Far more it is a case of the fact it wasn't the great read I was expecting. I can see that plenty of people love this so possibly it's just me. Personally I would advise people new to Joe Knox's work to start with the Aidan Waits stories. 3.5/5 People have been enjoying spaghetti and tomato sauce for thousands of years. In A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce, professor of history and nutrition writer Massimo Montanari of Bologna, Italy, serves up a fascinating chronology, deconstructing the roots of this beloved food while also unraveling preconceived notions and misconceptions. Greenfield's irreverent text demolishes the fourth wall, and Lowery's peppy pencil and digital-media renderings of his words have a vibe reminiscent of a child's journal, with doodle-style drawings accenting his dynamic renditions of Greenfield's words. For avid and reluctant readers alike, this tongue-in-cheek, metafictive send-up of reading as a chore is delightfully unlikely to live up to its title. -- Jaclyn Fulwood, youth experience manager, Dayton Metro Library I liked this