The Trapped Girl

Author: Robert Dugoni

Series: Tracy Crosswhite #4

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Release Date: January 24, 2017

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

The fourth book in the Tracy Crosswhite series is a must read, top notch thriller with twists at every turn. This is Dugoni at his best!

Tracy Crosswhite finds herself called out when a woman’s body is found submerged in a crab pot in Puget Sound. This is not going to be an easy case.  Before they can do anything else, Tracy and her team must first identify the victim who has gone to great lengths to keep her identity a secret.  This raises the question, who and what was she running from.  Following the evidence the team is lead to believe that their Jane Doe might be a woman who disappeared several months earlier climbing Mt. Rainier with her husband, who was a suspect in her disappearance.  Without a body on the mountain, it was hard to make a case against the husband.  All this hits close to home with Tracy as she remembers the disappearance of her sister and how that case consumed her life.  Each clue brings about another one that conflicts with the previous, making the investigation that much harder.  Tracy is more determined than ever to find the truth of what happened and is determined not to let anything get in her way.

Robert Dugoni is now one of my top favorite authors with the Tracy Crosswhite novels as one of my most recommended series. The first in the series is my favorite, but The Trapped Girl gives it a run for its money.  This story goes back and forth at times between Tracy and what is happening with her and then to Andrea Strickland, the woman they think they found dead.  This can sometimes be confusing but Dugoni has found a way to write both scenes without losing the reader at any point.  These are the stories I love to sit down and devour in one siting if I have the time. With two boys at home it took me a few days to read but I loved every page.  I’m can definitely say that a Dugoni novel has never bored me and a Tracy Crosswhite novel keeps me up well into the night. Dugoni has found a way to write characters that are easily likable (Tracy), and characters that you can’t help but despise, (Nolasco, Fields).  I really hope this isn’t the last in the series.  There is so much more I could see happening with Tracy and the squad.  Her relationship with Dan is continuing to pay out nicely and the rest of the squad has developed a dynamic that is hard to find in other books.  I know it is early in the year but I feel certain I can say this will be in my best of the year list, it will be hard for another book to top this one.  I can’t say that this is the best in the series, the first one is one of my top books of all time and that’s just hard to beat.  But this one is a very close second.  The way I know a book is one of the best, like My Sister’s Grave, is several years later I can think about that book and recall most of it.  Many of the books I read fade from my memory within the next year.  I am sure The Trapped Girl will stick around and be one I recommend for a long time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that loves a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat guessing at what is going to happen next. There is some mild language that may not be suitable for young readers.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.