The Dead Season

October 12, 2020
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. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary.

October 1, 2020
Still recovering from her traumatic debut in Death in the Family (2020), an upstate New York cop has been suspended from duty but not from the need to probe crimes old and new. Still having nightmares from the time she was kidnapped and caged by psychotic killer Blake Bram 14 months ago, Shana Merchant, senior investigator with the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, can't say no when someone discovers the 20-year-old bones of her uncle Brett Skilton, whose split from his wife, Fee, was evidently more decisive than either of them foresaw. No sooner has Shana driven home to Swanton, Vermont, to comfort the parents who begged for her help and ask decidedly uncomfortable questions of her Aunt Fee and her cousin Crissy, Brett and Fee's rebellious daughter, than she's asked to join BCI investigator Tim Wellington in working another case on a more official basis: the abduction of 9-year-old Trey Hayes from the grounds of Boldt Castle. Unlike her inquiries into her unsavory uncle's death, which are met by fierce push back from both Fee and Crissy, the second investigation seems altogether more straightforward until Shana realizes that the kidnapper is none other than Blake Bram and that he's taken the boy in order to force Shana to unmask Brett Skilton's killer for reasons she's the only person on earth in a position to appreciate. No wonder Shana feels that "Swanton was sucking the life out of me--too much family, too many bad memories"--with more no doubt in the offing. Professional-grade detection with a no-nonsense heroine who can be stressed out but never counted out.

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October 15, 2020
Death seems to pursue Shana Merchant. Currently suspended from her job as a senior investigator at the New York Bureau of Investigation after solving a traumatic case in which four people were murdered, she's in therapy, awaiting a psych evaluation and feeling a deep connection to serial killer Blake Bram, who held her hostage for eight days and has not been found. Then the bones discovered in her Vermont hometown turn out to be those of her uncle, Brett Skilton, thought to have left his family decades earlier but who was actually killed then. When a nine-year-old boy goes missing, Merchant suspects Blake of the kidnapping, as he tracks her and leaves messages pressuring her to solve Skilton's murder. But when she realizes just who her nemesis is, she's in a quandary about whether to reveal her suspicions, even to colleague Tim Wellington, who soon comes up with Blake's identity on his own. While some crimes are solved by the intuitive Merchant, a major problem is left hanging. In this diverting sequel to Death in the Family (2020), the game is still on.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)