A Good Man

A Novel

By: Ani Katz

Narrated by: Mark Deakins

"I sat down to read A Good Man and didn't move until I'd finished.... I loved this book." (Caroline Kepnes, author of You)

A dark and gripping novel of psychological suspense about a family man driven to unspeakable acts, in the vein of The Perfect Nanny and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Thomas Martin was a devoted family man who had all the trappings of an enviable life: a beautiful wife and daughter, a well-appointed home on Long Island's north shore, a job at a prestigious Manhattan advertising firm. He was also a devoted son and brother, shielding the women in his orbit from the everyday brutalities of the world.

But what happens when Thomas’s fragile ego is rocked? After committing a horrific deed - that he can never undo - Thomas grapples with his sense of self. Sometimes he casts himself as a victim and, at other times, a monster. All he ever did was try to be a good man, but maybe if he tells his version of the story, he might uncover how and why things unraveled so horribly.

©2020 Ani Katz (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"[An] ingenious slow burn." (Entertainment Weekly, "Your Complete Guide to the Season's Best Page-Turners")

"Powerful and unsettling.... Produces in the reader a sense of foreboding that builds with ever-increasing intensity to the inevitable and brutal climax.... [A] masterly first novel." (Publishers Weekly starred review)

"As she expertly builds a growing sense of dread, Katz creates an unsettling atmosphere of paranoia, fear, and rage, hinting at the catastrophe to come through ominous comparisons to the tragic operas Thomas loves. This is the sort of relentless novel you can't put down even when you're afraid to read what happens next. An unnerving and absorbing exploration of modern masculinity and how the seeds of violence are sown." (Kirkus Reviews)

Good but wanted more

I thought this book was pretty good. I think you need to come to some conclusions yourself because the author doesn’t complete the story for you. The main character is unreliable. It’s a dark book with a disturbing ending. I liked it, but at the end I still had questions that I wish were answered.

Long and drawn out

I expected more to the story. It was very long and drawn out with a bad ending. The voice of the man speaking was nice but when he talked as the wife it was hard to listen to.

Kafkaesque! Worth your time.

This book is crafted so professionally, so thoughtfully, so skillfully that I kept finding myself picking it up throughout the day, despite having other things to do. The narrator speaks so reasonably, while the author winks the truth at us without ever making their presence known. Incredibly Kafkaesque in a way that I can’t help but envy as a writer. Definitely worth the read if you like unreliable narrators and feeling vaguely squeamish when being lied to.

Could have been a short story

This book was so slow going. I held out because of the reviews by respected authors. Awful ending. I would not recommend.

Taut and mesmerizing

Such a believable insight into a horribly familiar tragedy. The father rendered crisply in his own words. The mother and daughter mysterious but never shallow. Evocative language brings it all to life—and murder.