U.K. author and actress Catherine Steadman emerged on the literary scene in 2018 with her bestselling first novel, SOMETHING IN THE WATER. This top-notch psychological thriller, full of twists and turns, was one of my favorite reads of that year. It appeared to be the product of a far more seasoned writer, and I wondered if she would be able to repeat that success.

The answer, I can proudly state, is a resounding yes. MR. NOBODY is a creepy and well-crafted thriller that immediately gets under your skin and continues to stay there right up until the stunning finale.

The premise is a familiar one. A man wakes up to find himself lying on the beach. Not only does he have no idea how he got there, he also has no clue as to his own identity. He is referred to at this point merely as “the Man.” He does remember a few ominous phrases that might lend themselves to uncovering who he is: “Don't f**k it up” and “You need to find her.” Who does he need to find, and what other details has he been given from the unknown speaker of these words? Prior to finding our Man on the beach, Steadman opens the proceedings with a high-speed car ride involving a psychiatrist and her patient. It is a great big tease as we do not get to see these characters together for a good while into this puzzler of a novel.

"Whichever way you follow it and get sucked into its vortex of suspense, it will be hard to deny that MR. NOBODY is the very definition of a psychological thriller."

Once the press gets wind of the stranger on the beach, they quickly tag him with the nickname “Mr. Nobody.” Assigned to analyze him is a somewhat famous neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Emma Lewis, who is sent off to a hospital located in a small British country town. For the entire first third of the book, I felt somewhat off-base. The writing and character descriptions were first-rate, but it just seemed like things were happening out of order, circling around the inevitable meeting between Mr. Nobody and Emma. In 2003, Oscar-winning film director Alejandro González Iñárritu released 21 Grams. Allegedly, he wrote out each individual scene on index cards, threw them up in the air and put the movie together in the newly created random order of how the cards fell. Reading this portion of MR. NOBODY felt like the literary equivalent of that great film.

Emma has a conversation with her brother, Joe, who is extremely agitated. He is concerned that her involvement with Mr. Nobody will come back to bite them, not because of her potential to fail with a high-profile case, but for fear that her time in the spotlight will result in their family secret being exposed. I will not reveal what that is here. Let's just say that it is significant enough that Emma and Joe had to completely take on new identities early in their youth to escape the negative attention they might have to fight against for the rest of their lives.

How then does Mr. Nobody play a role in Emma's deep, dark secret? This is where the suspense and tension of the novel lies. In fact, the tension that is set up due to the reader not knowing what directions the narrative will take almost outweighs the final reveal. It will be up to each reader to determine if he or she enjoys the journey more than the destination. Mr. Nobody refers to himself as Matthew, and rumors abound that he is a military man with serious PTSD, or the adult version of a young man named Stephen Taylor, who had disappeared when he was 19, or a brutal killer who had suppressed his memory to escape the horrors it held.

Whichever way you follow it and get sucked into its vortex of suspense, it will be hard to deny that MR. NOBODY is the very definition of a psychological thriller. Catherine Steadman has provided us with two novels that are sure to keep people talking. With Reese Witherspoon purchasing the film rights to her debut, she might soon become a household name as well.