Book Review – The Cat Trap
Books, Review | Professor Crazy | December 6, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Author: K.T. McCaffrey
Cover Artist: Derek Colligan
Publisher: Hale Books
Binding: Hardback
Publication Date: Feb. 2008
The Cat Trap is a good name for this mystery novel, don’t get me wrong – but, after having read it (yes, it’s a perverse thing to do), I imagined other titles that might have been alternatives: Give ‘Em Enough Rope, possibly; or, The Women’s Murder Club – but that darn James Patterson already chose that one.
Why might these other two titles have been good alternative ones for this book? Like many spellbinding, suspenseful mystery stories, there are dichotomies set up in The Cat Trap, between the characters who are “good,” and those who are “evil”. And, like the mysteries which are well worth reading, as this latest one by K.T. McCaffrey is, these two categories are not populated with characters who are wholly good or evil, black or white, but with ones who overlap in some respects, and contain within themselves shades of gray, exemplified perhaps best with the rich, bitchy-acting women of Ireland’s snobbish elite horsy set that get together the first Friday of each month to gleefully plot devious revenges against anyone who dares to rouse their anger.
They are for whom the novel is titled, because of their catty ways and how they play with their victims like a cat does with a mouse. Though there’s plenty of evil deeds done by other culprits in the book, this clique of women are perhaps the most entertaining ones to read about. Ultimately, their scheming, planning, and desires for vengeance does them in as a group – hence the reasoning for both of the alternative titles I mentioned – but, they are fun to read about while they last.
Who are the main “good” characters of this novel? There are two of them in particular – Detective Inspector Jim Connolly and his girlfriend, the investigative reporter Emma Boylan, for the Post. Connoly’s ex-wife, Iseult, is a member of the First-Friday Club. Much of the novel sees Connolly imprisoned in the Cloverhill Remand Prison, and Emma tries to prove his innocence in the murder of Iseult and the aggravated rape and murder of Nuala Buckley, who was also a member of the First-Friday Club.
Connolly receives a call from Iseult summoning him to the house they once shared. She’d told him “the importance of showing up at the stroke of noon.” For what purpose, he knew not at the time. I enjoyed Connolly’s and the author’s two-sentence description of her and her sense of humor:
Her take on humour was sharp, spiteful and vicious. If a school for stand-up cruelty existed, she’d be leader of the pack.
But, though Iseult asked him to meet her on April 1st., practical jokes and displaying her wit was not on the agenda. Entering the house – the door was unlocked – he’s confronted by a haunting memory of discovering her infidelity, one of the last straws to the end of their marriage. In the garage, he sees Iseult’s dead body in her Audi, with the engine running and a hose with one end “fixed to the exhaust, its other extremity pushed through a small opening above the car’s rear-door window.”
Connolly assumes, at first, that his ex-wife must have committed suicide. He tries to resuscitate her, but he is far too late. It’s only the start of his waking nightmare, as Nuala is found by the police badly beaten, with signs that someone’s sodomized her brutally. She dies, as well, and Connolly is charged with both of the women’s murders.
It seems as if a conspiracy is going on. Most of his acquaintances on the police force turn against him, though, because it seems as if all of the evidence is pointing towards him as the most likely culprit. Iseult’s death is not a suicide, as Detective Inspector Sean Grennan relates to Connolly:
“Our friends in pathology discovered a tiny incision mark on the nape of her neck where a hypodermic needle was used. The pin-prick mark was well hidden by her hair, but we can now say for certain that she was unconscious before she was exposed to the car’s exhaust fumes. So, you see, clever and all as you think you are, the whole suicide codology you set up is not going to wash.”
Also, when Iseult was still alive earlier in the day, she’d phoned her father, Edmund Smyth-O’Brien, as a part of her original plan (concoted with the First-Friday Club) about the supposed “rape” of Nuala, in order to frame him for it. She claimed, as Connolly tells Emma, that:
“She’d heard screams coming from the master bedroom, dashed upstairs and caughts me in the act of raping Nuala Buckley.”
“Remind me again who Nuala Buckley is?”
“A friend of Iseult’s…and the daughter of Shane Buckley.”
“You mean Shane Buckley, the racing tycoon?”
Emma, despite everyone else seemingly being convinced of Connolly’s having murdered the two women, knows that what’s he’s being accused of is not something Connolly would do. Proving it wasn’t him responsible is difficult, though. About the only course open to her is to use her investigative reporting skills and go to everyone who might have the slightest link to the women’s lives and deaths, ask them questions, and she is she can get any of them to contradict each other.
The women of the First-Friday Club (which would have also been a great title for this novel) are interesting to read about, for me, because they are made by the author to be complex individuals with their own motivations for their actions, and readers feel at least a twinge of sympathy for them. Their plans to take revenge on those who’ve wronged them in some way are over the top and hurt or inadvertently result in the deaths of others; but, they have their reasons for wanting vengeance.
The reasons for their actions are explored in a series of flashbacks, as are the origins of the club. Perhaps the person who has the best motive for getting revenge is Diana Elliott, wife of Maurice Elliott (a multimillionaire who wants to enter politics), who she married not out of love, but to increase her upward mobility by marrying a rich man.
Though they both have affairs later in their marriage, they have a son, Ronan, together. Diana wants only the best for her son, and looks forward to the day when he will take over his father’s vast fortune. But, his swimming instructor, former Olympian Brandan Edwards, is homosexual, and seduces Brandan when the boy is just eleven years old. Diana catches them at it and is understandably pissed off by what Edwards has done.
She watches early one morning Edwards swimming laps in the hotel pool where he’s employed. Two of the other women of the Friday Club, both strong swimmers, keep pushing his head under water. They claim, when they tell Emma about it, that their intention wasn’t really to kill Edwards, but he has a heart attack and dies. Surveillance cameras have recorded everything that happened, but the film has disappeared, and now someone is blackmailing the women and their husbands.
Besides having to delve into the secrets and schemes of the First-Friday Club, Emma wonders who is blackmailing them, and if that person (s) could have had anything to do with the unplanned – by the First-Friday Club ladies, anyway – deaths of Iseult and Nuala. How she goes about proving Connolly’s innocence is fascinating reading, and you can’t help but think as you read if she might become the next victim.
Now, on to why the title K.T. McCaffrey chose, The Cat Trap, is probably the best choice for this novel compared to the alternatives I’ve mentioned. Though it’s insulting to label a woman “bitchy” or “catty”, women often think of and call other women that, and, of course, men often use those insults referring to women, also. The wealthy women of the First-Friday Club revel in their bitchiness/cattiness, so that’s one reason for the title.
Also, there are numerous references to cats in the book. The cafe where the women meet is called The Cat’s Pyjamas; Carrigmore Stud Farm, which Shane Buckely owns, has cats around it, as does Ann Buckley’s (the sister of Nuala) house, to take care of mice and rats; Darren Dempsey (who, like Connolly, has also been accused of rape in the past), the father of Chris and Katie Buckley (who get kidnapped during the course of the novel), with Nuala, is described as having “bolted for the fire escape like a scalded cat”; and, the cat Sasha is the First-Friday mascot.
What I think is another nice touch that ties in with the title choice is the cover photo of the book, showing a pair of woman’s legs from the lower calf down, with the feet in high-heeled shoes, looking like they’re entrapped within criss-crossing police tape. The perspective is like that of a cat’s, making the image an eye-catching and visually potent one.
Other books set in Ireland by Irish authors came to my mind as I read. For instance, there’s Ken Bruen – whom I haven’t read any novels by, but has been recommended to me as a good author – whose book, The Guard, is referred to in The Cat Trap. Then, one which I thought of was Declan Hughes, who has authored a series of excellent novels with “Blood,” always as a part of the titles. His novel, The Color of Blood, my favorite of them so far, involves the horse racing world of Ireland much like The Cat Trap does, but to an even greater extent.
If you like complex, suspenseful, page-turning mysteries, I would recommend you check out The Cat Trap, by K.T. McCaffrey. It has lots of twists and turns to it, memorable characters, and reading about how Emma finally exonerates Connolly makes for a pleasurable way to spend one’s leisure time, indeed.
Tags: Cat Trap, Derek Colligan, Hale Books, K.T. McCaffrey, Mystery
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