A recent abduction becomes an unexpected link to a decades-long spree of unspeakable crimes.Eight-year-old Brooklyn Mercer has gone missing. And as accustomed as FBI agents Eliza Sterling and Brandon Eddison are to such harrowing cases, this one has struck a nerve. It marks the anniversary of the disappearance of Eddison’s own little sister. Disturbing, too, is the girl’s resemblance to Eliza—so … resemblance to Eliza—so uncanny they could be mother and daughter.
With Eddison’s unsettled past rising again with rage and pain, Eliza is determined to solve this case at any cost. But the closer she looks, the more reluctant she is to divulge to her increasingly shaken partner what she finds. Brooklyn isn’t the only girl of her exact description to go missing. She’s just the latest in a frightening pattern going back decades in cities throughout the entire country.
In a race against time, Eliza’s determined to bring Brooklyn home and somehow find the link to the cold case that has haunted Eddison—and the entire Crimes Against Children team—since its inception.
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I finished this book yesterday evening . And just like first three books. This one didn’t disappoint me. It made me cry one sad story and beautifully done. Two I will miss these agents and characters. Dot Hutchison you write amazing books. Can’t wait to read what you come up with next. Highly recommend this book and her other books as well. I love all these characters.
About book-
When a young eight girl comes up missing around the same time agent Brandon sister went missing years ago. The agents start to piece together the case and maybe more cases that look connected. It’s a very good read.
I am sad to see this series end. I really enjoyed all 4 books. The Butterfly Garden hooked me the instant I started reading it. I have enjoyed that each book has a different person on the team being their book. Each person has their own problems and each book solves a horrific case and at the same time having that person work through their problems. This was another bizarre case that spans 30 plus years. Both Bran and Eliza have problems to work through in all things, work, their relationship and personal. If you have loved all the other books you will love this one. If you haven’t read the other books, why not?
*I received a free copy of this book via the NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.*
I had to stop part of the way into reading because I needed to go back and reread the first three books. I remembered the themes/premises of them, but needed the refresher.
This made for an ok conclusion to the series. I enjoyed it for the most part. The non-translatable language makes for a bit of an annoyance. There’s entire sentences and in one case a paragraph plus that is entirely unreadable.
Although this is the fourth book in the series, you can easily read this and not be lost but I would recommend reading them all! A serial child abductor and killer has been on the loose for 30 years and no one knew. This case is personal for The FBI team. I found myself in tears towards the end and love how everything was tied together-closure.
We were first introduced to this series with The Butterfly Garden, a book that horrified and traumatized many readers several years ago. It continued with The Roses of May and last years bestseller, The Summer Children. (You can read my review of that book HERE) Each book has built on the development of the team members who originally found girls in the Butterfly Garden and their work within a special unit of the FBI. Now a child has been abducted, their specialty, but the case is eerily similar to kidnapping of Eddison’s sister years earlier. As the team members deal with their own haunting demons from past cases, they also must search through clues to see how and why this case may be linked to the cold cases from old before it is too late to save the missing child.
Let me state up front that absolutely is not a “stand alone” book. I read The Summer Children last year and only slightly fell through the cracks a few times. After that, I promptly went back and read the first two books in the series. All of these books are top notch, horrifyingly marvelous thrillers. This one, however, is the end of the story. For those of us invested in these characters it is a book that ties up all of the loose ends, answers questions from the past and allows us and the author to move on to new topics. It is a must -read for followers of Hutchison’s work, but I don’t recommend starting here. I do, however, recommend reading every single one of the books in the series. They are absolutely fantastic! Hutchison is a masterful storyteller whose tales you will not want to miss.
I like her books even though her FBI agents are too warm and fuzzy! Twisted storylines and interesting characters.
Wonderful ending to an Amazing series!
Each book had a crime to solve and some of the people we met along the way became great friends. This book wraps up some storylines of these people with another chilling crime. Very well done
Crimes against children team of FBI agents deal with missing child, and a series of linked murders which happened over many years. There were many plot twists, but the characters were not well developed. The author threw in many trendy racial and social groups just to appear quirky- Hispanic, Jewish, Lesbian. etc. The pain of parents of missing children was well documented, while romance was tossed in the mix as an afterthought.
I wavered between rating this book 3 or 5 stars, so I decided 4 stars is most appropriate. I foolishly started with the fourth and final book in a series, therefore missing a lot about previously established relationships and cases solved. The actual premise of the book, a missing eight year old child, was excellent! How this single case grew to so much more was very absorbing, and the result of excellent FBI and police work and collaboration. The cohesiveness of the FBI group and their professional and personal mutual respect for each other was very enjoyable to read. On the other hand, I missed out on a lot of background and development of these relationships because I hadn’t read the previous books. I fully intend to read the other books in the series, in order, so I can understand more about all the incredible people in the story. Afterwards, I may even read this one again!
The only negative for me was a few insertions of words, sentences, and one instance of several paragraphs in other languages; I believe these were Spanish and Hebrew. I found these parts annoying, as I was unable to understand what was being communicated.
Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read The Vanishing Season in exchange for my honest review. As I’ve already said, I look forward to reading the previous books in The Collector Series.
I have really enjoyed these characters in this series.
I feel like this book should be playing up to the hype of its release and in my opinion, it just fell flat. I like the story idea behind it but it’s a generic storyline that’s been done before. If I’m honest I’m a tad disappointed.
I really enjoyed the plot of this book, it was fast-paced and really kept my attention. What happened to Brooklyn? Would the FBI find her in time? I did struggle a little bit with keeping track of some of the characters – I have not read the first or second books in this series and I wished that I had because the characters I struggled the most with were featured in those first books. I will likely read the first two books at some point because I did enjoy the third and fourth books.
I thought the author did a great job alternating between current events (the FBI’s hunt for Brooklyn) and giving glimpses into the past to follow the storyline of Eddison’s missing sister, Faith. I especially liked the glimpses into the personal lives of the agents – especially Eliza Sterling who is the main focus of this book.
Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for providing a copy for review
This is the last book in The Collector Series and Dot Hutchinson rounds it out nicely. The book can be picked up and enjoyed by new readers and it also flows nicely with the three other novels in the series. Readers finally get some long-awaited answers regarding one of the anticipated story lines that has arced over all four books. As this is the last book in the series, Hutchison mostly falls back on familiar characters and wrapping up their plot lines and giving a glimpse into their futures. It was a nice wrap up to the series and the novel was intriguing all on its own. 4 stars.
Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC of #TheVanishingSeason