Catherine Ryan Howard’s books are genuinely thrilling
One lingering aspect of the pandemic in literature is discovering how novelists grapple with it: Some avoid it, setting books earlier or later. Some note it but keep it in the margins. And some, like thriller writer Catherine Ryan Howard, dive right in.
The Irishwoman’s 2021 novel, “56 Days,” is about a couple who met and fell for each other on the cusp of the COVID-19 lockdown, impulsively deciding to shelter in place together. Which was fine — until the woman began to discover clues that suggested her new lover might be the killer responsible for several recent deaths, a problem that no amount of N95 masks or hand sanitizer can mitigate.
Howard’s latest, “The Trap,” takes place as the pandemic is becoming “manageable” but its lingering effects are felt in the Irish police force, hindered in its investigation of the disappearance of several young women because individual departments are not yet at full strength and interdepartmental communication remains hybrid/frustrating/ ineffective.
The opening chapter of “The Trap” may be the most gripping and surprising one I’ve read all year (just to give you an idea: The first twist in the book happens within 10 pages). Stranded by the side of a deserted road, a reckless woman named Lucy hops in a car with a stranger. They chat but she quickly grows uneasy as the conversation turns to the missing woman and the man’s responses set her on edge. Then Lucy flips the script, in the first of many entertaining reversals.
Howard’s seven books were bestsellers in Ireland, but she’s not as widely read here as, say, Alice Feeney or Tana French. Filled with
By: Catherine Ryan Howard.
Publisher: Blackstone, 270 pages, $26.99. quirky humor and dazzling reversals, “The Trap” is the latest proof that she should be.