The Dead Season
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Senior Investigator Shana Merchant has spent years running from her past. But she never imagined a murder case would drive her to the most dangerous place of all—home.
After leaving the NYPD following her abduction by serial killer Blake Bram, Shana Merchant hoped for a fresh start in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York. Her former tormentor has other plans. Shana and Bram share more than just a hometown, and he won’t let her forget it. When the decades-old skeleton of Shana's estranged uncle is uncovered, Bram issues a challenge: Return home to Vermont and solve the cold case, or the blood he spills next will be on her hands.
As Shana interviews members of her family and the community, mining for secrets that could help her solve her uncle's murder, she begins to realize how little she remembers of her childhood. And when Bram grows impatient and kidnaps again, leaving a trail of clues Shana alone can understand, she knows his new victim will only survive if she wins the psychopath’s twisted game. In order to solve one mystery, Shana must wade into her murky past to unravel another.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wegert's so-so sequel to Death in the Family finds senior investigator Shana Merchant suspended from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in upstate New York while she receives counseling for PTSD. Fourteen months earlier, Shana then an NYPD detective was held captive by Blake Bram, a serial killer from her hometown of Swanton, Vt. She escaped, but Bram remains at large and isn't finished tormenting Shana. Shortly after police in Swanton find bones belonging to her Uncle Brett, whom everyone thought abandoned his wife and kids 19 years ago, nine-year-old Trey Hayes goes missing in New York's Thousand Islands area. Bram leaves clues suggesting that if Shana wants to save Trey, she must first solve Brett's murder. Despite having neither jurisdiction nor the desire to probe her kin's troubled past, Shana feels obligated to play along. Convoluted plotting and some questionable character motivations aside, this tense, twist-riddled slow burn largely satisfies as a self-contained mystery while forwarding the series arc. Jan Burke fans should take note.
