September 5

The Trap – Catherine Ryan Howard

Stranded on a dark road in the middle of the night, a young woman accepts a lift from a passing stranger. It’s the nightmare scenario that every girl is warned about, and she knows the dangers all too well – but what other choice does she have?

As they drive, she alternates between fear and relief – one moment thinking he is just a good man doing a good thing, the next convinced he’s a monster. But when he delivers her safely to her destination, she realizes her fears were unfounded.

And her heart sinks. Because a monster is what she’s looking for.

She’ll try again tomorrow night. But will the man who took her sister take the bait?

–

Inspired by a series of still-unsolved disappearances, The Trap is the startlingly original new thriller from internationally bestselling author Catherine Ryan Howard.

 

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the tour for The Trap.  I recieved a review copy from the publishers ahead of the blog tour.

Late at night on a dark country road, a woman is walking alone – she is heading home from a night out and her phone is dead. A stranger drives past and stops to offer her a lift. Every instinct screams at her not to get into the car – but she accepts the lift and risks putting herself in danger. It’s a tense situation and a terrific opening to The Trap – you can’t help but fear for the safety of this character who we’ve only just met and you’re braced for something awful to happen.

But what if the woman was actually looking to be picked up by a monster? What if events prior to that fateful meeting had led her to the point that placing herself in danger felt like the only option she had? This is where The Trap takes readers, into a story where Lucy feels lost, frustrated, forgotten, ignored and desperate. She’s furious that her sister is missing. There are other missing women in Ireland who, like Lucy’s sister, simply vanished leaving no trace other than a broken mobile phone – yet the Guard are not treating Lucy’s worry seriously and don’t want to commit to a full investigation or link the cases of the other missing women incase it sparks fear there is a predator abducting lone women.

Lucy goes out late at night to try to lure out the man she beleives took her sister from her. Her sister’s boyfriend, the Family Liaison Officer appointed to deal with Lucy and the families of other missing women are all trying to be supportive but Lucy can’t accept nothing is happening to bring her sister back to her.

It is an emotional and disturbing premise for a story and Catherine Ryan Howard has wonderfully captured the upset, anxiety and frustrations of her lead character. But she also shifts the narrative to show the readers what the officers in the Missing Person’s Team are doing to try and trace the women who have been reported missing. They have a suspect – a narcassistic man who was the partner of one of the missing women…he is far too slippery to let the police get too close though. Then there’s a breakthrough and a shock twist which may reveal the fate of the missing but how will the Guard change their approach and what impact may this have upon the families?

Most disturbingly is the fact we also get to see inside the mind of a predator. The man who explains how he came to be responsible for snatching women off the roads and why he does what he does. We learn of his background, the trigger steps in his “journey” and his acknowledgement that he is using true crime documenataries to learn what mistakes to avoid. Really chilling.

Weaving the narratives between victims, predator, investigators and the other supporting characters is extremely deftly done and the story zips along at good pace and with constant intrigue to keep the reader turning the pages. When unexpected events crop up they very much were unexpected – this book really didn’t go where I had anticipated and I enjoyed it all the more for the unpredictability of the plot.

I’ve enjoyed all the previous books Catherine Ryan Howard has written and it gave me particular delight when I reaslied there are nods (easter eggs) to earlier books in The Trap. The Jurrasic Park reference I was looking for was easy to spot, as it appeard about 8 pages after I remembered to look out for it, and there’s even a (sort-of) author cameo to enjoy too which cranked up my enjoyment levels even more. All these wee touches were very much appreciated by this reader and at no time did they take me out of the story – such was the focus I was giving Lucy’s plight.

This book was started and finished in a single day. I totally inhaled it, got completely caught up in the story of the missing women, the official response from the Missing Person’s team and the steps which Lucy was prepared to take to find her missing sister. I can honestly say we didn’t end up in a place I’d expected – once again Catherine Ryan Howard befuddled me and delivered a clever, clever mystey for me to enjoy.

This is going to be an easy book to recommend – I loved it and I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t love it too.

 

The Trap is available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-trap/catherine-ryan-howard/9781787636606

 

 

 

 

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December 5

My Five Favourite Audiobooks of 2021

It has been a great year for audiobooks so, after being dropped from the blog for the last couple of years, I am going to resurrect an end of year “Favourite Audiobooks” list for 2021.

This selection of books was brought to you in association with Odin.

No not the craggy, one-eyed Norse deity but a soon-to-be two-year old cockerpoo who needs a couple of good walks each day. My daily dog walking gives me the time and opportunity I need to get lots of listening done and this year I have enjoyed a couple of dozen full books while chucking sticks around a park and trudging up and down woodland paths. So thanks to Odin for bringing back the listening.

I have selected five of my favourites and although they are not in any specific order I will finish with the story I enjoyed the most. These five books are included because of a number of factors, a great narrator, an engaging story or subject matter, a tale I couldn’t stop thinking about or just beacuse I thought it was terrific.  These are the five which I considered the best purchases I made through my Audible account.

 

Far From The Tree – Rob Parker

Brendan Foley has worked to balance the responsibilities of a demanding job and a troublesome family. He’s managed to keep these two worlds separate, until the discovery of a mass grave sends them into a headlong collision….

The juggle for Brendan Foley in this book is brilliantly handled by Rob Parker. Foley’s family have dubious criminal connections as his father is one of the North West’s biggest gangsters. So when Brendan’s nephew is found dead in a mass grave, family loyalty is not high on Brendan’s list of priorities. He is a man under huge pressure and there are a lot of corpses who deserve justice – can Brendan Foley step up for them?

 

 

 

Billy Summers – Stephen King

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit….

How could I not include Billy Summers in my selections? King is the master storyteller and Billy Summers is one of his very best. A hitman with the chance to make enough cash from the next job that he could retire. But there are too many things Billy doesn’t like about the assignment and fate isn’t going to make it easy for him.

This was a book which had me making longer detours on my walks just so I could hear another ten minutes of story. When it was finished I wasn’t – I wanted more.

 

 

The Reacher Guy – Heather Martin

The Reacher Guy is a compelling and authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, refracted through the life of his fictional avatar, Jack Reacher….

I don’t read non-fiction and I certainly don’t read biographies. Well that was true until I listened to Heather Martin’s excellent biography of Lee Child, author of the tremendous Jack Reacher novels.

I thought I knew Reacher well (I’d been reading his story for over 20 years). I knew Lee Child was an alias but that was all I knew. Heather Martin showed me how little I actually knew. She tells the story of three men and she shows how my favourite fiction was shaped by history and experiences and tells the reader about the stubborn determination of a man called James Grant.

This book opened my eyes and gave me an enjoyment of non-fiction which I had not previously experienced. Since reading The Reacher Guy I am now picking up more non-fiction titles and feel I am gaining from each one I read. This is a detailed and fascinating listen.

 

Chasing The Boogeyman – Richard Chizmar

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town. The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb. But soon a rumour begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human. Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI, are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman – and he’s playing games with them. For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and suspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.

The release of this post was delayed 24 hours as I still had 45 minutes of Chasing The Boogeyman to listen to. Even before I had finished the audiobook I knew it was going to be included in my list of five favourites. It’s a story from the late 80’s when for six months a killer attacked a number of teenage girls and held a terror over a small town. The story is told by Richard Chizmar himself, a resident of the town in question, and he plays an integral part of the story even fearing he may become a suspect at one point. It is chilling ficton but presented as a true crime investigation – there is even a PDF of pictures of the characters to accompany the audiobook to allow listeners to see snapshots of the key figures in the story and locations important to the plot. It’s a really clever addition to a brilliant audiobook.

 

56 Days – Catherine Ryan Howard

No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead….

It is December 2021 and Covid and lockdown have been present in our lives for over 20 months yet this isn’t being reflected in the fiction I am reading. Who is writing the lockdown stories? Well Catherine Ryan Howard is – 56 Days takes all the anxiety, claustrophobia, tension and paranoia of 2020 and weaves it wonderfully into this murder story.

This is the audiobook I enjoyed most in 2021. The narration was wonderful, the shift in narrative across the 56 days which cover the novel kept the teases and reveals flowing through the story – it isn’t a linear narrative so you realise some characters know more than they are letting on at certain parts of the story and that just throws up more question around why they are behaving why they are. The story hangs on the characters and their actions and Catherine Ryan Howard has crafted a wonderful cast to make this story absolutely shine.

 

So there you have it five wonderful and unmissable audiobooks. Some non-fiction which includes a lot of fictional references, a serial killer thriller, a police investigation with gangland links, a hitman story which is so much more and a clever murder tale hidden from the world during a pandemic lockdown.

I limped over the finishing line with a busted pair of headphones so until I get back to the shops and replace my £10 headphones with a new pair of similar value no new audiobooks will be started. I can be confident, therefore, that no new audiobook will be listened to over the last three weeks of 2021 and that this five really are the best five audiobooks I listened to this year. Now all that remains is for you to seek them out too and see for yourself why I loved them so much.

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February 17

The Nothing Man – Catherine Ryan Howard

I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man.
Now I am the woman who is going to catch him…

You’ve just read the opening pages of The Nothing Man, the true crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago.

Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was – is – the Nothing Man.

The more Jim reads, the more he realises how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won’t give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first…

 

My thanks to the publishers for my review copy which I recieved through Netgalley

 

Eve Black is a survivor.  When she was a young girl she was in the house when a killer broke into the family home and killed her parents and younger sister.  Eve only survived as she had woken in the night and wasn’t in her bed when the killer looked into her room.  Twenty years later Eve writes The Nothing Man. It is her memoir and a true crime book about serial killer The Nothing Man – the man responsible for the death of her family and numerous other murders in Ireland.

Jim Doyle is the security guard at a supermarket.  His world is turned upside down when he spots a customer buying a copy of The Nothing Man.  Years ago Jim was The Nothing Man.  Technically he still is – The Nothing Man was never caught or held to account for the crimes he committed.  Why is Eve Black publishing her story now?  What could she have to say?

Eve is using her book to announce she is going to identify The Nothing Man.  She believes the work she put in when researching his crimes has allowed her to work out the identity of the man that took her family from her.  Jim realises that this cannot be allowed to happen.  His life is far from ideal but there is no way he is going to allow Eve Black to make him pay for crimes he has managed to get away with for over two decades.  The Nothing Man will need to be born again – one more victim is needed.

Rest assured that nothing in this review contains spoilers. The blurb and opening chapters introduce Jim and Eve and readers are made fully aware of their respective backgrounds. What I loved about this new thriller from Catherine Ryan Howard was that we know exactly who the killer is, we see the devastating legacy the killer’s crimes caused and you need to know how the killer reacts when he starts to feel a net closing in on him.

The Nothing Man (Eve’s book) covers the murder of her family.  As the reader we don’t just get to read Eve’s written account of events but Catherine Ryan Howard takes us back in time to when the killer was active and committing his crimes.  The narrative covers both timeframes (then and now) so we can have a comprehensive picture of the man Jim Doyle was and the man he has become. This is also the case for Eve Black who survived a home invasion and escaped the murderer to grow up in a remote cottage with her grandmother where she was sheltered from the potential of a second attack.  Eve is determined to tell her story and she plans to find justice for her family and the other victims.

Reading (partially) like a true crime novel, but with lots of extra content which firmly marks it as a gripping crime fiction read, The Nowhere Man is one of those wonderful bookish delights you always hope to pick up. The characters leap out the pages and are vividly realised, the story is so engaging that you will yourself to read one more chapter as you need to know what’s coming next.  As a reader you want to be picking up a book which makes you glad you read it – that’s The Nothing Man.  I loved it.

 

The Nothing Man is published by Corvus and is currently available in Hardback, digtial and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0855N98FH/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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