No One You Know

No One You Know is one of those stories that doesn't grab you so much as slowly suck you in. As everyone who has sat fuming at the table while a relative or friend tells a story about you, that while not exactly untrue, frames you in way you do not wish to be seen can attest, sometimes the stories people tell about us affect us more that we wish.
Ellie Enderlin was the younger daughter, sister to a math genius who is murdered. Later, her sister Lila's death becomes the subject of a true crime story. The story opens almost two decades after Lila's death, when Ellie encounters a man from her sister's past that sets Ellie on the journey to try and figure out the truth of what happened to her sister.
The story examines perceptions,love, show more truth and proof in a myriad of ways. San Francisco, coffee (as Ellie is now a coffee taster) and mathematicians figure in also. It's one of those stories I hate to talk too much about for fear of spoiling the way the layers unfold. I found it an enjoyable read. show less

Every story is an invention, subject to the whims of the author. For the audience on the other side of the page, the words march forward with a certain inevitability—as if the story could exist one way only, the way in which it is written. But there is never just one way to tell a story. Someone has chosen the beginning and end. Someone has chosen who will emerge as the hero or heroine, and who will play the villain. Each choice is made at the expense of an infinite number of variations. Who is to say which version of the story is true?

Since her sister's unsolved murder two decades ago, Ellie Enderlin has been living out her role in her family's story. In the months after her sister's death, Ellie had worked through her grief in show more conversations with a trusted professor/mentor/friend. Her trust was betrayed when her mentor revealed his intention to publish a true crime account of her sister's murder, filled with the details Ellie had shared with him about her family's life and the effect of her sister's death. The book became a best-seller and launched a successful writing career for the professor. In the intervening years, Ellie accepted his account of her sister's murder and the circumstantial evidence pointing to the guilt of a person who had never been charged with the murder. However, an unexpected encounter with the supposed murderer causes Ellie to question what she had believed for so many years, and to launch her own investigation into her sister's death.

This is much more than a murder mystery. It's a reflection on truth and story, on perception and reality. It's a meditation on mathematical conjecture and proof. It's a contemplation of relationships – sibling, parent/child, teacher/student, husband/wife/lovers. It's a beautifully told story that pulled me in from the first page and held me until the last. Even though I couldn't put it down and ending up reading it in just a few sittings in the course of 24 hours, it didn't feel like I was rushing through the story to finally learn “whodunit”. I savored every word. Highly recommended for literary mystery readers, coffee lovers, and math geeks. show less

I enjoyed this, though I do confess to skimming some of the parts about math. I may have been a math major once upon a time, but I don’t really enjoy reading about it. Other than that, I thought Ellie and Lila’s story was quite interesting. Ellie has 20 years of guilt that she has to deal with, and that is almost more important than figuring out who actually killed her sister. I especially enjoyed the use of setting in the story — whether Ellie was in San Francisco or Nicaragua, I felt like I was there with her. All of Ellie’s relationships, whether they be close (like with her parents) or casual, are odd and strained, leading the reader to believe that Ellie and Lila were more alike than either of them thought. One unexpected show more result of reading this is that I’ll never look at a true crime novel quite the same way again. How much of it is truth, and how much is conjecture? How much of the story is written just to push the author’s agenda? What was the family’s reaction to the book? It gives you something to think about. show less

I imagine Ellie would be dismayed to learn that I do not like the taste of coffee. I do not even care for mocha ice cream. But, oh, do I love the smell of a fresh pot of coffee, especially in the morning!

Ellie Enderlin has the perfect nose for coffee. She had never set out to become a coffee buyer, but it is a career well suited to her. She can pick out the individual scents and flavors of varying coffee types and knows a good coffee bean when she comes across it. During her most recent business trip to Nicaragua, Ellie ran into a person from her past, a person she never expected to see again.

Nearly twenty years before, Ellie’s older sister Lila was murdered, her body discovered in the woods days after Lila had disappeared. Lila was show more the golden child of the family, the math genius. Ellie always felt she was living in her sister’s shadow, never quite living up to her parents’ expectations. Lila was extraordinary. Ellie felt ordinary, even after Lila’s death. Ellie and her sister could not have been more different, one finding comfort in numbers and the other in books. Where Ellie was more social, her sister seemed to prefer solitude. Still, the two young women loved each other very much and shared a bond that only two sisters could share. Lila’s death was devastating to her family. She left behind a gaping hole that could never be filled.

Upon her sister’s death, Ellie turned to her professor as a confidante, leaning on his shoulder for support. She trusted him with her inner most thoughts only to have him turn her family’s tragedy into a bestselling spectacle. He went so far as to name the man he believed was behind the death of Lila in his book, something even the police could not do.

It was the man accused of Lila’s murder that approached Ellie in the out of the way Nicaraguan restaurant late one night. What he told her would change Ellie’s life view irrevocably. Everything she came to believe to be true was suddenly in question. Was it possible that this man, Peter McConnell, really was innocent of her sister’s murder? Ellie is suddenly determined to learn the truth, and, in the process, she learns much about not only her sister, but herself as well.

No One You Know is an amazing novel. Simple as that. Michelle Richmond has created characters that are complex and deep. Ellie’s issues with trust are multi-layered. She always believed her sister was murdered by someone her sister trusted and loved. How then could she trust those close to her? And then to be betrayed by a close friend when her confidante wrote a book about her family’s tragedy against her wishes. Is it any wonder then that Ellie has problems with trust—and love? Then there is Lila who even in her death is wholly alive in the novel. The more Ellie learns about her sister, the less perfect Lila seems, and the more equal the two sisters become.

There are the other major players in the book. Andrew Thorpe, former professor, now bestselling author. He charmed his way into Ellie’s life and while he may have truly believed he was a good friend to Ellie, his motivations and actions said otherwise. Peter McConnell, Lila’s math partner and the man Thorpe accused of having murdered Lila had fled the country, driven out away from his family because of the accusations being leveled at him. His entire life was ruined, and yet he had found some sort of peace in his new life, surviving as best he could. I cannot leave out mention of Henry, Ellie's ex-boyfriend. She gave more of herself to him than she had to most others in her life, and yet she still held back. There are other characters as well that stand out. Each one having a distinct purpose in the novel.

“’ . . . in order for a book to be really good, it’s not enough to develop the major characters. The minor ones, too, have to be distinct. When readers close the book, they shouldn’t just remember the protagonist and antagonist. They should remember everyone who walks across the pages.’” [pgs 268-269]

San Francisco is a beautiful city and proved to be the perfect setting for the majority of No One You Know. I have a special fondness for the city myself and could relate to Ellie’s admiration and love for it. The author paints San Francisco just as it is, both in its glory and is haze, which fits the story all the more.

One of my favorite aspects of the novel was the balance between mathematics and the elements that make a good story. Two aspects that might seem so very different on the surface, and yet share a lot in common. On one hand the author would offer a mathematical conjecture and how it may come to be proven, while on the other, she would describe how a story is shaped and formed. It is an overreaching theme that fit well with the discovery of truth in Lila’s death, the building of proof to make an absolute, the forming of a story with a beginning middle and end. For me, it was also an extension of Lila and Ellie, their differences and also their similarities.

The true crime book aspect of the novel provided a lot of food for thought. It felt like Andrew Thorpe had taken advantage of his friendship with Ellie, and exploited her family's tragedy. Not only that, but it also had resounding repercussions on Peter McConnell and his family. There are many viewpoints out there about true crime, including whether it is pure sensationalism or provides a valuable truth. I am not sure even now where I stand. I think that it can be either or and some of both.

My favorite quote is actually the final two sentences of the book, which I have decided not to share here. And while neither contains a spoiler, part of its power comes from reading it in context. As I read those lines, I found myself nodding in complete agreement. It was the perfect wrap up for this wonderful book.

I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. The characterizations, the setting, the story, and the language drew me in so completely. There was no one aspect of the novel I did not like. No One You Know is a novel that will appeal to mystery lovers as well as those who prefer contemporary fiction. While the mystery plays center stage, it is the growth and development of the characters that are really what this novel is about. It’s a combination that I find irresistible and I hope you will too. show less

Toward the end of this incredibly moving literary mystery, the storyteller—and Ellie is a storyteller; narrator is far too sterile a word for what is going on here—comes to the realization that stories aren’t set in stone. I don’t know if that is a universal truth, provable to the irrefutable certainty demanded by the mathematician characters in No One You Know, but it is clearly true about the story told in these wonderful pages. This story is set in something far richer: fertile literary soil that is at times dark, at times funny, at times heartbreaking, and, at every step, lyrical.

I’ve been a been reader of literary fiction for more years than I care to admit, and a reader of mysteries for even longer than that, and still show more no novel comes to mind that, for me, combines the best of both these worlds so elegantly.

In this novel of stories told and received, retold and unwound, Ellie’s search for the truth about the unsolved murder of Lila, her brilliant mathematician sister, is a lovely study of passion, family, loss, and love. It left me thinking about so many things: how we love and why we fear loving; how we define ourselves and those around us, or leave those tasks to others; how important passion is to the work we choose to do; how often untruths told with confidence are received as truths, and how difficult it is to peel back the edges to get a peek behind widely accepted untruths; how much damage we sometimes do to others when we are over-focused on ourselves.

No One You Know is a book I will be putting in the hands of every intelligent reader I know.

Snow Falling on Cedars? Perhaps it might be in the same league as No One You Know. Perhaps. show less

Ellie Enderlin's brilliant older sister Lila is murdered when Ellie is a teenager. In the aftermath of the death, as Ellie and her family sink into grief and isolation, Ellie allows her writing instructor, Andrew Thorpe, to befriend her, and she uses him as a confidante, venting her sorrow and confusion, and frankly discussing her sister, her parents and herself.

So she feels completely betrayed when he writes a "true crime" book about the murder, even though she begs him not to. Her parents feel that she has betrayed their privacy by bringing him into their lives, and, as the book climbs the bestseller lists, becoming wildly popular and jump-starting the author's career, the family members sink even deeper into grief and become distant show more from one another. The book adds yet another layer of sorrow to their existing grief, and Ellie chronicles the sad changes they all undergo, while not quite realizing how much the book itself is shaping the way she is beginning to see and live her own life.

Richmond depicts in heartbreaking and realistic detail the effects a sudden death have on a family -the grief, guilt, and isolation that descend. Ellie helplessly watches her parents withdraw from each other, as she continues to feel survivor guilt, believing that, as the less favored sister, she should have been the one to die.

The famous book becomes the "last word" on the murder, and the author actually names a suspect, who is never arrested and subsequently disappears.

Eighteen years later, Ellie is approached by the suspect, Peter McConnell, at a cafe in Nicaragua. He admits to her that he moved there to escape the notoriety that followed him from the book, and he asserts his innocence, though he does admit to having an affair with Lila. These revelations make Ellie conflicted, since, despite some misgivings about details in Thorpe's book, she has lived her life as though the book was factually correct about the murderer.

Beginning to question Thorpe's conclusions, Ellie reconnects with him. Thorpe, now a successful writer, has become borderline creepy, and he begins trading Ellie the names of other suspects (whom he had ignored in his book for dramatic reasons), for dates with her. Armed with these new names, Ellie begins her own investigation of the murder.

Ellie has suffered issues with trust since her sister's death and the subsequent betrayal by her confidante. She feels that she is an outsider, always feeling guilty and suspicious, afraid to trust anyone, always stuck in grief and confusion. She sees the chance at solving her sister's murder as an active step toward defining her own life as a women, not just as forever a victiim of that one horrible act. She also sees it as a gift to her parents.

The plot is compelling, the writing is very moving and beautiful, and the characters, especially Ellie, were very well drawn. The love stories, important subplots, are sweet and satisfying.

I did find the elaborate passages about mathematics, Lila's passion, a bit contrived in context. I respect their purpose in the novel, but I thought the highly technical nature of the conversations unnecessary sometimes.

I also found Ellie's understanding acceptance of her discoveries and her lack of outrage and anger impossible to relate to. Her family was devastated, exploited, and kept from the truth for two decades. She herself had struggled for a feeling of belonging and peace as long. Her sister gone, the murder not solved, the police apparently incompetent, her friend an ambitious betrayer, the main suspect out of the country, a secret kept for years. Well, I admire her acceptance and lack of bitterness, but I would have been plotting revenge against at least a couple of the players in this story. I know she felt a resolution by the end, but come on, Ellie, take some names!

I loved the author's "The Year of Fog" (to which she slyly refers in this book). It was beautifully written, as well as a page turner. This book has all of those good points also. Michelle Richmond is a wonderful writer and I'll read anything she writes in the future. show less

This was the ideal vacation read. It was diverting, without requiring my undivided attention. In it, a woman looks for her sister's murderer, after the man who she thought was the culprit convinces her of his innocence. It's pretty much a standard thriller/mystery novel, but it's well-executed, well-written and well-plotted, which is enough to make it a stand-out in a very crowded field. Refreshingly, the conclusion didn't involve the protagonist putting herself into jeopardy, the killer being unnaturally evil or the person a lesser novelist would have chosen. No One You Know was fun, and while I suspect I'll have forgotten it in a few months, it was good enough for me to want to find a copy of the author's other book.