The Trap

 

The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard

Mystery

Narrated by John Keating and Alana Kerr Collins

2023

Finished on August 4, 2025

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

From award-winning, internationally bestselling crime writer Catherine Ryan Howard comes The Trap: an unsettling mystery inspired by a series of still-unsolved disappearances in Ireland in the nineties, wherein one young woman risks everything to catch a faceless killer.

One year ago, Lucy's sister, Nicki, left to meet friends at a pub in Dublin and never came home. The third Irish woman to vanish inexplicably in as many years, the agony of not knowing what happened that night has turned Lucy's life into a waking nightmare. So, she's going to take matters into her own hands. 

Angela works as a civilian paper-pusher in the Missing Persons Unit, but wants nothing more than to be a fully fledged member of An Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. With the official investigation into the missing women stalled, she begins pulling on a thread that could break the case wide open -- and destroy her chances of ever joining the force. A nameless man drives through the night, his latest victim in the back seat. He's going to tell her everything, from the beginning. And soon, she'll realize: what you don't know can hurt you...

Nonlinear timelines and misdirection kept me guessing, and even shaking my head in disbelief, as the final pages drew near. This was my first read of Catherine Ryan Howard's thrillers, and it won't be my last. I enjoyed the audio narration, although the nameless abductor was creepy to listen to as he shared details of his process with one of the victims. It's been years since I've read anything by Mo Hayder, but there is something about The Trap that brought her Jack Caffery thrillers (Birdman, The Treatment, and Gone) to mind. Thankfully, this book didn't give me nightmares! 

Catherine Ryan Howard is an award-winning, no. 1 bestselling thriller writer from Cork, Ireland.

Her work has been shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel, the UK Crime Writers Association John Creasey/New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Awards, and the An Post Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year multiple times. Her novels have been included in the New York Times Best Thrillers of the Year, the Washington Post’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers of the Year and the Sunday Times Best Thrillers of the Year. She is published in 20 languages and a number of her titles have been optioned for screen.

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.