REVIEW: THE TRAP by Melanie Raabe

THE TRAP by Melanie Raabe

RATING: 5/5

Publisher: Text Publishing

Unlike the rest of the world, Australia is heading towards winter and what could be better than an exciting book to read under the covers?
The review I am posting this week is special because it concerns a book I have long awaited and that I was dying for to read. I'm talking about THE TRAP by Melanie Raabe published here in Australia by Text Publishing on the 28 of March 2016. I also have to thank the lovely Stephanie from Text Publishing for my beloved copy.

A thriller in a thriller, that's what THE TRAP is...


Linda's life is almost perfect: a writer of some success and a boyfriend and a sister, Anna, who loves her. A normal life until she discovers the corpse of Anna in a pool of blood. Everything changes, her whole life becomes a nightmare. A face; this is what Linda remembers about that blurry night, but no one, not even the police, seems to believe her. Starting with the panic attacks that prevent Linda from live a normal life, she take the decision to became recluse ... for eleven long years her whole world will be her lakeside villa. She continues to write with great success but still lives isolated and alone with the worst nightmares that still keep her awake night after night. To fight insomnia Linda usually watch TV and that's on the TV that she sees that face, the face in her memory that makes her suffer for all these years is now in front of her eyes on the TV . The shock received by that image is devastating. Upon waking up Linda makes a decision that give her the strength to get back on her feet. The only thing she can do well is to write so, she decides that this will be her trap for Anna's murderer. She announces to her publisher that soon she will write a new book and will be also of a new genre: a thriller called Blood Sisters. The idea is to describe the murder of Anna, changing only the characters but keeping the same circumstances and the crime scene, so that he, the monster of the TV, can recognize himself and come out. But how? Linda decided after years of silence, without ever give interviews to newspapers or TV, to grant an exclusive one to him. The only one who probably knows the whole story already....

A powerfull, original and compelling plot with a breath-taking twist that will keep your eyes glued to the pages.
A fast-paced novel with the right amount of twists, lies, fears and also a bit of love.

The growing anxiety that you feel reading this book doubles when you realize you are reading two books at once: the life of the writer Linda Conrads and the story of her alterego Sophie in the thriller Blood Sister. The two stories come together to make a powerfull one full of suspense and twists. A structure that definitely helps to keep a steady attention and the adrenaline soaring.
I devoured the pages to find out what was happening in Blood Sisters and at the same time, while I was reading it, I could not wait to get back to the present with Linda and her face to face with the murderer. Definitely a winning structure that I pass with flying colors!

This villa is my world. The sitting room with its opern fire is my Asia, the library my Europe, the kitchen my Africa. North America is my study. My bedroom is South America, and Australia and Oceania are out on the terrace. A few steps away, but completely unreachable.
— The trap by Melanie Raabe

I was very fascinated by the character of Linda. Enigmatic writer of bestsellers that lives for 11 years as a prisoner of her own fears . Linda evolves in this book, changing with the events. She is transformed from a fearful person to someone who'saware of its possibilities and with the knowledge to be able to succeed where the police have failed, facing what for 11 years she has tried to forget. Main suspect in the case of her sister, Linda feels accused and isolated until she finally becomes aware of her strength and hinges on this newfound determination to undermine all her insecurities, founding a new purpose in lifeand the courage to fight ...

This psychological thriller written by Raabe certainly does not have anything to envy to way more famous crime novels.
If this is for Raabe her debut.... long life to Melanie!


melanie raabe.jpg

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Melanie Raabe was born in 1981 in a small village in Germany and studied media science and comparative literature in Bochum. After completing a traineeship for a Cologne city magazine, she became an actor, blogger, interviewer, stage play and screenplay writer. She has her own interview blog (www.biographilia.com) and has received several prizes for her scripts and short stories. The Trap is her debut novel.

TITLE: The trap
AUTHOR: Melanie Raabe (translated by Imogen Taylor)
PUBLISHER: Text Publisher
GENRE:
Thriller
PAGES: 281

Find it here : Amazon | Bookdepository