The Trap

The Trap is a 2023 crime novel by Catherine Ryan Howard, inspired by the still-unsolved disappearances of women in Ireland in the 1990s known as the Vanishing Triangle. The story itself is entirely fictional and set in the present day.

A year ago, Lucy's sister Nicki went out to meet friends at a Dublin pub and never came home — the third young Irish woman to vanish in as many years. Not knowing what happened has hollowed Lucy out, and she decides to stop waiting for the Gardaí and put herself in the killer's path.

Meanwhile Angela, a civilian administrator in the Missing Persons Unit who wants nothing more than to join An Garda Síochána properly, starts pulling on a loose thread in a stalled investigation. Following it could break the case open, or end her chances of ever wearing the uniform.

Howard cuts between the two women and, chillingly, the man taking them — a taut, well-structured thriller about how easily a person can disappear.