Title: TRACED
Author: Catherine Jinks
Read: January 2025
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!
Book Description (Goodreads):
Jane is a contact tracer. She has to call a lot of people and some of them don’t want to talk. Various reasons—tax or immigration issues, infidelity. Domestic abuse.
Jane knows all about that. She and her daughter Tara have spent years in hiding
from Tara’s manipulative and terrifying ex. Now, as Jane talks to a close
contact, she realises the woman on the phone is scared of the same man—and he’s
close. Too close.
Suddenly the past comes slamming back into the present as Jane realises she and
Tara can’t keep running forever.
One day, they’re going to be found.
My musings:
This book was utterly terrifying! TRACED starts
with our main protagonist, Jane, a covid-19 contact tracer, calling people who
have unwittingly been exposed to the virus and reminding them to isolate for 14
days until they have been declared virus-free. Nicole, her latest client,
sounds absolutely terrified when she hears that her cousin has just tested
covid-positive. She confides in Jane that she is scared that her fiancé, who
controls her every move, will be furious that she allowed her cousin to visit,
and that she is afraid for her life. At first, Jane thinks that Nicole is
overreacting – but once she hears who her fiancé is, she knows that Nicole’s
life truly is in danger.
We soon learn that Jane speaks from
experience: her own daughter Tara only narrowly escaped from the clutches of
her abusive, controlling ex, which involved changing her name and moving to a
place he would never think to look for her. After being so very careful, Jane
has once more crossed his path, and she is terrified that he will come after
her and Tara.
TRACED was a taut domestic thriller with
a constant undercurrent of danger that built tension as it raced towards its
utterly terrifying finale. It was frightening and confronting to witness Jane
and Tara’s well-grounded fears and their feeling of helplessness as once again
the noose threatens to tighten around their necks, despite all their efforts to
stay under the radar. I found Jane’s voice extremely compelling, to a point
where I fervently wished death upon one particular character in the book. I was
biting my nails as the inevitable showdown neared!
TRACED surpassed all my expectations
and is my first 5-star read for the year. If you love an original, enigmatic
protagonist, then Jane is the perfect character. A race against time in an
atmospheric Australian setting, fighting a very real battle many women in our
society face every day – which is perhaps one reason this book was so
terrifying. Jinks is a talented writer, and I look forward to reading more of
her books in future. Highly recommended!
