A review by vlad_mateescu
The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard

4.75

Written as a tribute to all the women who have gone missing across Ireland since 1993, Catherine Ryan Howard’s seventh crime fiction novel The Trap is an ideal pick for short trips, not because the novel is short by conventional standards, but because readers will be quickly hooked by this tragic story of a woman desperate to uncover the fate of her missing sister. It is not one singular element of the novel that has this effect, but a mix of its captivating narrative and an entertaining selection of characters, which come together to makes The Trap into a veritable page-turner that keeps on giving right up until the very last sentence.

The plot twist towards the end of the first chapter is not exactly a plot twist anymore for readers who prefer to start a novel by reading its synopsis. That being said, as there are twists and turns aplenty lying in wait, that hardly matters in the long run. The story of the O’Sullivan sisters is seen through many different pairs of eyes, each one imbuing the building blocks that make up the overall story with their distinct energy. Moving the plot along becomes a group effort, though more often than not it is the plot that pushes the characters towards facing the consequences of their own actions, to either come into their own or die trying. Following the intertwining narrative threads and trying to make sense of them is the highlight of this novel, particularly because of how “transparent” Howard is with her readers: we are handed the numbered pieces of a puzzle and left to put them together, with the one condition that we must do so in the dark. Our imaginations run wild piecing together a supposedly coherent line of events, only for Howard to eventually turn the lights back on: the realisation that we had it all wrong, that through the pieces fit together we are actually no closer to solving the puzzle, is exceedingly satisfying. 

As The Trap is a rather plot-driven novel where the spotlight is shared between multiple characters, they end up being relatively static. However, that should not be taken to mean that the characters are flat by any means, as they come in all shapes and sizes. The main characters, each at the centre of a narrative thread, are all efficiently fleshed-out, and their passions, aspirations, struggles, and anxieties are expertly put on display. As far as character development goes, the climaxes of the O’Sullivan sisters’ respective narrative threads bring about swift changes of heart, with

Lucy finally coming to terms with her sister’s disappearance after spending the whole novel hunting for the truth

and

Nicki devoting herself to making amends after having run away from home because she wanted to be free of everything

. Angela sees little in terms of characters development, as her character arc revolves largely around her supporting Denise in her investigation;

Denise, on the other hand, hijacks Angela’s narrative thread with her announcement that she had applied for a transfer to another department for the sake of her mental health, only for her conscience, during her own miniature narrative thread, to bring her back to finish what she started

. From this point of view,

Darren can be said to serves as Denise’ foil, as he too comes out of his “retirement”, only he does not do it out of duty but out of twisted love for his criminal hobby

. With respect to Howard’s secondary characters, such as Chris, Caroline, Roland, Jack Keane, or Margaret Gold, who readers only get to know from the outside, they too get their fair share of opportunities to show off their rich personalities and make a lasting impression. They all are a mixed bag not only when it comes to their morality, black and white and multiple shades of grey, but also when it comes to their likeability: using myself as a point of reference,

that I liked Angela while utterly despising Darren as people

only to adore them both as characters speaks volumes of Howard’s skill when it comes to writing well-rounded characters that shine bright in the darkest of settings. 

In spite of everything, The Trap does have one defect, namely that  Howard’s elaborate set-up rests upon a not necessarily significant but irksome plot hole:

the premise that there were other women held captive in the Pink House. It is because of Lena Paczkowski’s statement to paramedics that once readers hit the halfway point of the novel and get to the first chapter centred around Nicki (who at this point in the novel they can only guess is Nicki, or else assume she is one of the women presumably kidnapped by Darren), they are led to believe that this is the Pink House, and these are Darren’s victims. That the women can just leave the Pink House whenever they want, shackled only by their fear of their supposed kidnapper, and that he is sleeping somewhere close by is unexpected and the first of Howard’s clues that readers should not take what they read at face value, but, as at this point in the novel readers do not yet know anything about Bastian’s Farm or his strict rules bordering on tyranny, they simply assume that there is more to Darren’s modus operandi than his monologues had led them to believe. With the reveal that Nicki vanished of her own free will and was never one of Darren’s victims, her narrative thread having been a red herring, and Darren confirming that Lena was indeed one of his victims, the only one to ever escape, that Lucy should wake up in an empty Pink House is bizarre. At this point in the novel Darren had also confirmed that he had killed Kerry Long and soon after confirms that he left Jennifer Gold to die. Even if we are to assume that Jennifer died at some point after Lena’s escape but before Lucy’s capture and that Darren had kept Kerry’s corpse in the Pink House, Lena had not only told the paramedics that there were other “women”, plural, being held in the Pink House, but also used the past simple “were” as opposed to the past perfect “had been”. This, given that she considered the information important enough to share when in critical condition, denotes that at the time of Lena’s escape there were at least two other living women held captive in the Pink House, which we now know to be impossible

. It is true that, as far as plot holes go, this one is relatively benign, but whether it is something Howard was hoping her readers would not catch on or something she overlooked herself, this mismatch becomes noticeable on a second reading of the novel or given enough musing following the first. As the one red wine stain on an immaculate white shirt, the contrast makes it all the more obvious and harder to ignore. 

This little plot hole aside, I found everything else to be magnificent, perfect even. I love novels that play chess with their readers, and I love and respect this one all the more for utterly outwitting me. Having said all of this, though I wish I could give it a perfect score, it is with a heavy heart that, for the sake of objectivity, I give The Trap 4.75 out of 5 stars.