A review by scknitter
The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen

4.0

Police officer Ellery Hathaway is the penultimate damaged character. She was kidnapped at age 14 and severely tortured by a serial killer before being rescued by FBI agent Reed Markham. No one where she lives now knows of her past and she fiercely protects her privacy because she doesn’t want pity or to have to relive the events publicly that she still lives with privately every day. When 3 people disappear the same time every year (on her birthday) and no one, including the sheriff, believes they are connected she reaches out to Reed Markham to help her. Markham is himself having a rough time and is on stress leave but he can’t refuse the request of the girl he saved and the victim who made him famous. The Vanishing Season is a thriller, a police procedural, a psychological study of PTSD and work force burnout. It is a look at serial killers and the impossibility of knowing who will become one and why. It develops strong and likeable characters that you will hope to see again. But, most of all, The Vanishing Season is a terrific read that you won’t be able to put down once you start.