I wasn’t super enamored with Tricked, the fourth book in the Iron Druid series, and I was really hoping that with Trapped, the series would be redeemed. One my biggest complaints about Tricked were the frequent info dumps by way of story-telling. Since Trapped returned to a mythology more familiar to readers of the series, I was hoping that tactic would be avoided. However, it happened several times, and whenever it did, it interrupted the action and broke up the flow of the narrative. I felt like the stories were unnecessary distractions from the main plot line.Another issue I have is that we were not able to see Atticus’s and Granuaile’s relationship develop. The span between the last book and this one is twelve years, but when the book opens, I didn’t perceive any difference in their interactions with each other. Certainly no signs that would suggest twelve years of constantly spending time together. The twelve year gap didn’t make much sense all around, in my opinion. It’s an insult to the readers to expect them to believe that after the events of the first four books (and one short story), nobody managed to locate Atticus for nearly the entire training period, and then all of a sudden, everybody’s after him. Vampires! Elves! Greek Gods! They all managed to locate exactly which outdoor goods store he is in and attack him. Twice. Of course, Atticus takes care of all that. There are frequent fight scenes where he manages to dispatch beings that are, by way of what explanation we get, older, more powerful, and frequently have special powers. I can’t think of a situation where there is any real concern that he and Granuaile might not make it out. He always has a convenient solution to escape any scrape he finds himself in. Obviously, I want a character who is strong and triumphs in the end, but it is also hard to believe that he never stumbles on the path getting there. Luckily, we do have Oberon the dog, who almost single-handedly got me through the book with his witty quips and confusion about human “mating habits.” There were a few other characters that I liked as well, including Perun, the Slavic thunder god, who was pretty great in the first few chapters. Unfortunately, for me, that’s about it. While the major story line hasn’t been tied up yet, I’m confident that at the end of it all, Atticus will be victorious. However, there just isn’t enough development to keep me invested as to how he gets there. I may give the next book a try, but it won’t be high on my to read pile.
