“He’d locked up the monster but failed to notice: the monster had already won.”

Ellery Hathaway just wants to live a quiet life, in a quiet town, and be a good police officer. She’d prefer to keep her past in the past, and her secrets her own. But when people begin to go missing, one a year for the last three years, Ellery can’t quite shake the certainty that they’re connected.

The thing about Ellery, the thing no one knows, the thing that makes her so certain of these connections, even when all other law enforcement dismisses her, is that she once survived a serial killer. She was the only one to survive Francis Coben.

But admitting that would mean revealing secrets about herself that she’d do anything to keep hidden. Instead she turns to Agent Reed Markum, the FBI Agent who found and saved her against all odds. Together, they find themselves thrown into a terrifying past with a killer who is determined to finish what was started.

“Ellie wasn’t suicidal; she’d fought hard for her life and won. But sometimes, especially during the longest nights, she did wonder if maybe the other girls had been luckier after all.”

The Vanishing Season is an amazingly complex book. On the surface it reads like normal crime fiction, full of suspense and intrigue. But beneath the surface, this is also a book that explores what it means to survive, to save and be saved, and how to endure trauma that will never leave you.

The idea that our past defines us really is brought to life through both Ellie and Reed in different ways. For Ellie, she just wants to live her own life. She wants to be seen as a woman capable and strong on her own. The idea that people will see her differently if they know her past is a horrifying thought for her. Conversely, Reed carries the burden of being a savior. He was the only one to see the details that led to Ellie’s rescue and Coben’s conviction. But to walk into every investigation with that same expectation shining in the eyes of hopeful parents is a heavy weight to bear.

“Now he understood the attractiveness of alcohol: it coursed through your insides like a river over a rock, smoothing you out so you didn’t feel so damn much.”

Schaffhausen does a really good job casting just enough doubt on everyone in the book. While the killer seems obvious in hindsight, it wasn’t that obvious as you’re reading. I did have my suspicions from the beginning, but multiple other suspects gave my initial hunch just enough doubt that I wasn’t sure until the end. And this is good writing to me. I like solving the crime and picking up the bread crumbs authors leave behind. But I also enjoy being stumped and not reading something super obvious.

I also really enjoy anything with a psychological twist, so while Schaffhausen doesn’t delve too deeply into the psychology of the killer, there is a lot written into Ellie and Reed that makes their profiles and issues very interesting to me.

“People would gladly tell you who they were if you only cared to listen.”

The Vanishing Season is a very fast read. It’s written in a very compelling prose that pulls you into the novel, urging you to turn page after page. Suspicion is cast on every single character in the book, including Ellie and Reed, so you feel very uneasy as you read, as if the rug could be pulled from beneath you at any moment. Which felt very poetic to me, since that’s probably exactly how Ellie and Reed both felt. I love when an author can make me feel the same thing as the characters. It makes the reading a much richer experience.

For fans of crime fiction, suspense or thrillers, I think The Vanishing Season is a fantastic book choice. There isn’t much graphic violence, although there are some disturbing scenes. We are in the world of serial killers after all, you can’t completely escape the reality of violence in that landscape. But it isn’t graphic, and doesn’t go into vivid detail. This is definitely a novel playing on the psychology of horror rather than exposing you to the grotesqueness of the horror itself.

I am so thrilled this was the December book choice for the Instagram group Black Hearts Reads! Click their name to link to their Instagram page and join in! They choose amazing books and host a discussion at the end of the month. It’s a wonderful way to experience a book club without leaving your house! And the ladies who host are amazingly sweet. They also do a number of giveaways, so if you’re on Instagram, and especially if you’re part of the #bookstagram community, come join in!!!