Melissa (Trying to Catch Up)'s Reviews > The Trap

2.5 stars
I was pretty disappointed in this book because I've liked Howard's last few books quite a bit. This one suffered from some issues.

It is the story of Lucy, whose sister Nicki disappeared a year ago and has started taking it into her own hands to try to flush out her kidnapper. She puts herself in dangerous situations in order to possibly be taken by the same man, she just wants to know what happened to her sister. The police have a task force and are working to find Nicki, as well as some other missing women that appear to have been taken in a similar manner. Two women, peripheral members of the police, think there may be even more victims.

I wanted to like this one so much, and many of my reviewer friends have loved it. I just didn't connect with any part of the story, it took me much longer to get through this book than I normally would have. It's really disjointed, skipping from perspective to perspective and timeline to timeline. There are times where you don't have any idea whose head you're in--that is the point when you get to some of the twists because sometimes you will believe you're in one character's head when it really was another one entirely, and the same thing with timelines.

This created a chaotic type of reading experience for me, I wanted it to be more cohesive and way less scattered. There are parts that are police procedural, yet just when I got into that groove it would switch to the villain's POV, then abruptly we go to Lucy's POV just long enough to gain momentum, then another switch. Even though that should have made the book fast paced, it slowed it way down for me. The premise is good overall and I like missing people stories!

Then I must talk about the ending. Ugh. Didn't like it.

Many, many people have loved this one, but I'm not one of them. Waving from outlier island.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.