We were happy and secure. We had everything we needed.

There was no way for anyone to know - at least of all me - that it would all end the way it did.  Thomas Martin is sure he is a good man; he is everything that he thinks a man is supposed to be He looks after his sick mother, and his adult twin sisters. He’s got a gorgeous house on Long Island, and he’s got “his girls”, his wife Miriam and his daughter Ava, who he is determined to protect. He’s a provider; he’s a protector and he’s the patriarch of his family. But Ani Katz’s debut novel A Good Man soon makes it clear: Thomas' 'perfect' life has gone horribly, horribly, wrong. The novel quickly moves around in time: from Thomas’ childhood, to the present day, to his recollection of what happened to 'his girls'. And while it can be confusing at points, it is his self-serving retelling - with the novel told solely from his point of view - that draws the reader in from almost the very first words. Thomas is going through the story, so he claims, in an effort to understand why - and how - his life turned out the way that it has. But amid all of Thomas’ assertions of “I may have” or “I can’t remember”, there are a number of characters who share conflicting accounts to what he tells the reader. The first time he met his wife. A drunken night with a colleague. A once-in-a-lifetime presentation at work. To call him an unreliable narrator would be a massive understatement. He claims that he understands where his life has gone wrong, and that he's tried his best. But as the book goes on, Thomas' possessiveness and paranoia grows - and every page brings a fresh sense of foreboding, unease, and just a general sense that readers aren't getting the whole story. A Good Man is the kind of book that I thought I would be able to sit down, and read a few chapters to get a sense of it. But in what felt like the blink of an eye, I was hooked - and 'just-one-more-page'-ing my way through to the end. Katz's debut is one that will have readers gripped from the very first words until the last - and a book that will stay with you for a long while afterwards.