THE VANISHING SEASON is a great murder mystery novel .I am glad I was picked to read this one because it is amazing. It has bit of everything, suspense, heart and great characters.

I know that I am going against the grain here. But I have found the last two novels in this series to be pretty average. By no means were they bad, but The Butterfly Garden was so immensely good that the others in the series pale in comparison. While I did enjoy this novel, I found it to be lacking something. What? Hell if I know, but something wasn’t there for me to bring it to the 4 star level.

The Vanishing Season ties up The Collector series. We are thrown into the novel with a child missing. The child that is missing is about 8 years of age with blue eyes and blonde curly hair. Which is reminiscent of Eddison’s sister, Faith, who disappeared around twenty years ago. This leads into a major investigation that may or may not provide Eddison with some answers. Or it may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back with his sanity. Among the case, we are dealing with Eddison’s relationship with Eliza. Eliza also happens to be our narrator and lead investigator for this case. In addition, she happens to have similar features as Faith and Brooklyn (the missing child) which plays into this fourth installment.

The thing about this series is that most of the novels have the shock factor along with the creep factor. This installment was much more heavily focused around emotions and mental instability. While The Butterfly Garden was incredibly emotional, this was done in a different manner. And to be honest, it just didn’t touch me in the same way. The last 75 pages of the story were surrounded around Eddison’s handling of the situation. And call me what you will, but it was kind of boring. I would have enjoyed a more drawn out case rather than an emotional uncovering. Additionally, the emphasis put on Eliza’s emotion with her mentally abusive relationship was annoying in my opinion. Simply at times I feel like her situation paled in comparison to Eddison’s. Like we have witnessed some heavy stuff through out this novel. Her keeping a dress for four years seemed gosh damn ridiculous for the amount of focus it received. Please do not take that comment as being insensitive or belittling to emotional abuse cases. That certainly was not the intent. I am simply stating Hutchinson really focused on this, while we have gone through some heavy shit with other characters in this series that simply cannot compare.

Additionally, Eliza’s focus on having similar features as Faith and Brooklyn was interesting. I found it a bit too convenient and sometimes not logical. Do all blonde haired, blue eyed girls look the same? Why yes those are similar features, but everyone’s reaction to her resemblance based on her eye and hair color was fascinating. Two similarities just aren’t enough for the shock value that ensued with each introduction. Not to mention, she was a grown woman not an 8 year old child. How similar could her resemblance be to a child that did not grow up? I don’t know maybe I am nitpicking.

One last complaint, I found the banter between so many FBI agents at time to be confusing. Like who the hell is talking? Who the hell made that joke? There were many snippets where I simply could not follow the banter because there were too many characters. I don’t just have complaints though! I did enjoy getting the little loose ends all tied up and pieced together. It was nice to see where some of our Butterfly girls ended up and how they have dealt with the cards life handed them. Additionally, I really enjoyed meeting Ian. He was a great asset to the characters.

But overall, I wasn’t really impressed with this novel. I think it accomplished what it needed to. But it certainly was on the weaker end in this series. But that is just my opinion and by the looks of the rating, I am an outlier. I look forward to reading some of my Goodreads friends review of this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the copy of this novel.

This review will go live on 3 June:

The Vanishing Season is the fourth and last instalment in the “The Collector” series by Dot Hutchison. For those of you who are not familiar with the series, allow me to do a quick recap, because you really can’t read this one without have read the previous books in the series.
It all starts in 2016 with The Butterfly Garden, which features “the Gardener” who is actually a serial kidnapper, rapist and killer: the butterflies in his garden are girls who he has taken from their homes, whose backs he then tattoos with butterfly wings. His garden is a kind of brothel, but with girls kept against their wills, and he also kills them when need be. This is first time we meet the FBI agents Victor Hanoverian, Brandon Eddison and Mercedes Ramirez who will major players in the next three books as well.
In 2017, we meet our FBI crew again in Roses of May, featuring a serial killer who leaves their victims surrounded by flowers. We’re introduced to Priya, whose sister fell victim to the serial killer years ago, and now she’s desperate to help catch him.
Last year’s The Summer Children focuses on FBI agent Mercedes Ramirez. Some kind of avenging angel is murdering, nay slaughtering, abusive parents but leaving terrified and traumatised children in her wake. We’re also introduced to agent Eliza Sterling who soon becomes an invaluable part of the team.

And we’re back to The Vanishing Season. After three previous books, my favourite Crimes Against Children team is back for one last case, and what a case it is. An eight-year-old girl with blue eyes and curly blonde hair is missing and our team is meant to find her. This is a particularly tough case, especially for FBI agent Brandon Eddison whose sister went missing when he was in his teens. Said sister was the spitting image of the girl who’s gone missing now, and she was also eight years old. Is there a connection, or is it mere coincidence? As always in this series an exciting investigation ensues, focussing on the team and their ups and downs, both professionally but also on a more personal level. Being the fourth book in the series, they are like family to each other, and also a little to me too. Throughout the series there has been so much character building, and right from the start these characters have felt very real to me. Yes, they are tough, they have to be tough to do their jobs properly, but they are also kind and empathic and flawed. They also work really well as a team, accepting each other’s flaws, helping each other. In this last instalment, I did have a bit of an issue with the tooth-achingly sweetness of it all. On the one hand, it counters the gruesomeness of the case. Although there are no gruesome details, reading about missing eight-year-old girls is hard, you know, and the fact that the team is so sweet and lovely and there’s hugging and everything, kind of softens that blow. On the other hand, there’s hugging. In. Like. Every. Chapter. I am not a hugger (especially not at work, good grief!) and I think I’ve grown accustomed to British thrillers where there is usually zero hugging no matter how close the team are. I do remember a hint of cheesiness from the previous books, but this is the first time it’s bugged me. I think that’s because there’s more of it in The Vanishing Season than in the previous books but it’s also quite possible that my heart has turned a bit blacker since book 3 and can therefore handle less of the sweet stuff, who’s to say. Aaaaanyway, while I do admit to some eye-rolling at the umpteenth hug, this was still a very enjoyable read. I’m very happy with how both this book and this series ended. All loose ends neatly tied up in a very organic way, nothing rushed or forced, and with a cute little epilogue jumping to a few years later, allowing us full closure.
If you’ve read and liked the other books in the series I certainly recommend reading this one. If you haven’t and you enjoy serial killer tales, I recommend that you look into this series, I’ve had a jolly good time with them!

My first book by Dot Hutchison. Definitely will not be my last. Already downloaded the first 3 in the series.
If you are a fan of Criminal Minds or FBI shows this book is for you.
You follow along as a team of FBI agents search for abducted 8 year old Brooklyn. Which during the search times in cases from along as 30 plus years back.
What I truly loved about this book is the writing. She knows how to transition from passed to present so seamless.
The book flows from starr to finish and did not disappoint.

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.

While writing negative reviews can be freeing in a way, I’ve been dreading writing this one. I absolutely adored Dot Hutchison’s first novel in this series. The Butterfly Garden was everything I wanted in a thriller, and I was absolutely blown away by it. I could not put it down! Shortly thereafter I read The Roses of May and while my review was glowing, my star rating slowly dropped the more thought I gave to it. The Summer Children peaked in quality a bit more, but the depth of focus given to the agents’ relationships, which many had critiqued in The Roses of May, finally began to irk me. The Vanishing Season takes it to a whole other level.

The problem with these books is that they force you to completely suspend your disbelief regarding professionalism and appropriate workplace behavior. There’s a time and a place for cutesy stuff like this, but FBI agents actively working a case ain’t it. It’s to the point where I hesitate to call this a thriller, or a mystery. While the last two books at least had some sense of danger and urgency, The Vanishing Season is honestly nothing but fanservice. The tonal shift is enough to give you whiplash.

I’m not saying that books need to mirror reality perfectly and most thrillers do require you to suspend your disbelief a bit, but it would take some serious mental gymnastics to think that a law enforcement team could actually function like this without crashing and burning, or at least getting a serious talking-to from an internal affairs department. I lost track of all the things I could not believe were happening. Agent cuddle parties. They all live next to each other! Always joking about the boy being outnumbered by LOL GIRLS (realistic but annoying). Her boss kisses her on the CHEEK? Literally everyone talks about the MC looking like an 8-year-old girl constantly and I’m seriously done with women being infantilized.

Aside from that, the excess of unnecessary detail was… overwhelming. I wish I had highlighted examples as I came across them because there were so many. In instances where a sentence or two would have conveyed a process just fine, a full page is used instead. There was so much infodumping that I just didn’t understand, and it came across as the epitome of telling instead of showing.

It sucks because between all the stuff I didn’t like, there was so much promise. The crime of the week could have been so much more interesting had it been expanded on, but it became more of a background to everyone’s personal problems. There was a really interesting exploration of realizing one had been abused that would have hit so much harder if it hadn’t been crammed together with a dozen other things. I feel like this book just tried to do everything at once and ended up shooting itself in the foot because of it. It’s a bummer because we all know Dot Hutchison is an incredible writer; The Butterfly Garden was kind of a masterpiece imo. The rest of the series was just an entirely different kind of writing.

So, unfortunately this really wasn’t for me and I can’t say I recommend it in its current state -- I can only hope that some additional edits were made between the ARC and the finished copy. I guess if you’re obsessed with the characters and want to see them spend all their time goofing around or having Serious Emotional Moments together, this is the book for you. If you’re looking for an actual thriller/mystery, keep looking.

When eight-year-old Brooklyn Mercer goes missing, FBI Agents Eliza Sterling and Brandon Eddison–both part of the Crimes Against Children team–try not to take the case personally. But with this disappearance happening so close to the anniversary of the Eddison’s sister's own disappearance, the nightmare of what he and his family went through becomes a fresh wound. It doesn’t help that Eliza looks just like both Brooklyn and Eddison’s sister, so much so that she’s asked to not come in contact with Brooklyn’s family in order to avoid traumatizing them more.

But Brooklyn’s family aren’t the only ones reeling from feelings of helplessness and grief. Eliza is watching Brandon come un-done, losing himself to his own unresolved guilt and rage over his sister’s unsolved case. Trying to keep boundaries between work and personal life becomes more difficult as Eliza works to solve the pieces of this puzzle, not just for the sake of the Mercers, but for Brandon’s sake too.

When pieces come together that Brooklyn’s disappearance is linked to disappearances of little girls across the country, the team works against the clock to find who took Brooklyn before it’s too late.

What sets The Vanishing Season apart from other police procedurals/thrillers I’ve read is that what’s at stake–that before it’s too late–isn’t just about the victims, but about the agents working the case. Not only are they working to bring a family back together, they’re working on putting themselves back together. This case is personal, not because it’s a child, but because cases like this are the exact reason why so many of the team wanted to become FBI agents to begin with.

And with this case being so personal to the main characters, the focus of the story is more on the characters themselves than the “procedural” aspects. I hadn’t read any of the previous books in this serious before but I was immediately drawn to Eliza’s character and her narration style. I found myself caring deeply not only about what Brandon was going through as we’re watching him struggle through Eliza’s eyes, but also issues Eliza is coming to terms with that I can only assume have been haunting her since the beginning of the series.

The Vanishing Season is definitely a book that will feel familiar to lovers of thrillers and police procedures. But, it’s also a book that takes a look at what brings people together and the bonds that keep them together, no matter if it’s blood, working closely as a team, or shared (traumatic) experiences. Hutchinson both entertains and tugs at heartstrings in this perfect summer thriller.

Another powerful novel in The Collector series, this one focusing on FBI Agent Eliza Sterling searching for a missing eight year old girl. For Eliza's partner Bran the case has a special meaning. His sister, who looked a lot like the missing girl, also went missing twenty five years ago, never to be seen again. As the case open old wounds for the team, they race to save the girl, but new chilling evidence comes to light, that this girl might not be the only one. This madman, whoever he is, has been taking girls for decades...

Gee, I really enjoy this series, and I'm glad Dot Hutchison extended it past the initial trilogy. With convincing writing, along with a cast of memorable characters, these book will keep you up long into the night. I recommend these books to all lovers of crime and mystery novels.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an OUTSTANDING series! VERY dark in the most delicious sort of way!! I read The Butterfly Garden, was super excited to discover there were 2 more, devastated that that would be the end then overjoyed to hear about a fourth one! This one follows FBI agents Eliza Sterling and Brandon Eddison. Both are haunted by past experiences while trying to find a missing child. I love how the authors develops her characters and makes you feel as though you know them. I would love to meet her just to see how she comes up with such creepy storylines. I could not put this one down! The Vanishing Season is my 2nd favorite in the series. It definitely rivals The Butterfly Garden! Sad that this is the final one, but The Summer Children was also the "final one", so there is hope!
Thank you to NetGalley, Dot. Hutchison and Thomas and Mercer for the ARC.
I have also posted more reviews on June 01, 2019. These will be to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Twitter and Facebook. My review can also be found on Goodreads

I can't believe it - the conclusion to an amazing series. I had no idea this was the end so I gladly cracked this one and just loved every word, not taking a moment to say goodbye to my favorite characters. It's a wonderful conclusion - just as sad and twisty and dark as the other books in the series.

This time, you are with Eliza - a very focused, obsessive agent that can get into the heads of the bad guys and does well with the families of them. She is sorting through her own struggles while also helping the team with a new mystery. One that involves Bran and his own personal case - the case of his missing sister, kidnapped years and years earlier.

There is more information about the FBI group and you get to know them so well. There are also peaks of the girls who have survived as they visit (although they are definitely not the focus, just an update to them). It was so great to read about this group again. I'm so sad this series is over. I will read anything this author wants to give us! I can't wait to see what she writes next!

The Vanishing Season is the fourth and final book in The Collector series, and although I wasn't particularly enamoured by the previous novel this instalment has raised the bar again. Hutchison hooks you in right from the get-go and holds you hostage through to the final pages. It centres around some brutal crimes and the tension she creates is palpable as it is slowly cranked up another notch as the story progressed.

What I particularly love about her thrillers is that she understands the delicate balance between making it fast-paced enough to keep the pages turning but not so quick that it makes the character development difficult. As her unusual, quirky cast is one of the best aspects I appreciate her attention to detail and their three-dimensionality. They are relatable and most importantly believable.

As well as the intense thrills and spills we are treated to a heartbreaking emotional rollercoaster, and Hutchison really shows her storytelling prowess. I found the ending ultimately satisfying, but this is a series I feel I will miss. I guess I will have to just look forward to her next book and hope I can get as invested in it as easily as I did with these. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer for an ARC.

Well developed characters you can't help but become invested in, a well paced story, and a satisfying conclusion. Hutchison never disappoints.

There is so much to say for Dot Hutchinson. All of her quirky characters are well-developed and well-loved. The storyline is fast paced, yet never rushed. I cannot wait to see what she writes next.

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 have such mixed feelings about The Vanishing Season. It was a solid story. I easily read it in under twenty-four hours. And I’m satisfied with the way things ended… But I’m only satisfied, not mind-blown. Although Hutchison’s writing has become more polished throughout this series, none of the subsequent books elicited anywhere near as visceral a reaction as did the first book, The Butterfly Garden.

The Vanishing Season reads more like a straightforward, mainstream thriller. The story is told almost entirely in first person, present tense from the POV of Agent Eliza Sterling. There are a few flashback scenes that don’t add much to the overall story, but everything else is told by Sterling. And unfortunately, Sterling is the weakest link in this book and probably the whole series.

I never connected with Sterling. Maybe I just got tired of hearing how young and gorgeous she was. Maybe I never entirely bought into her purported level of intelligence. But it boils down to the fact that I simply did not find her a compelling lead character. I was pretty ambivalent about her as a side character, but I was hoping she would bring more to the table as a lead. But her narration and her personality were so inconsistent. Sometimes she was cold and clinical. Other times she was frilly and almost ditsy. I felt so disconnected from her. It was engaging when she was analyzing the case, because following along with the logic of criminal profiling and narrowing the suspect pool was right up my alley. But the second the story switched to Sterling having a personal moment, my interest would lag.

I also never got used to Eliza referring to Eddison as “Bran.” Don’t change how a character is referred to four books into a series!

One aspect that I loved about the previous books was the exploration of various effects of violent trauma. From Stockholm Syndrome to survivor’s guilt, the previous books expertly presented the far-reaching ripples of these crimes. But that was barely present in The Vanishing Season. There was a small look at treatment of families of the perpetrators and some repetition of lessons from previous books, but all of that took a backseat to the rest of the story. And I greatly missed both the emotion and intellectual intrigue of exploring those difficult subjects.

This story still made me cry, but it was overall the least emotionally impactful to me of the four books. I enjoyed the parts pertaining to the case more than the interpersonal relations. Sterling was so stiff that I wasn’t invested in her romantic relationship at all. And my connection with the other characters was more due to the events of the first three books than anything specific in this installment. If anyone read this as a standalone, they wouldn’t be nearly as invested. But it bears repeating that this book literally made me cry, because I rarely cry at books. So keep that in mind despite the amount of critiques in this review. This was still an intriguing story with a strong emotional component. I enjoyed it thoroughly; it just was not as amazing as its predecessors.

According to the author’s note, this is the end of the series, and I’m very glad of that. I said after The Summer Children that as much as I enjoyed this series, I want it to end before it drags on and the quality tanks. I’m satisfied with the way things wrapped up, and I hope this truly is the end. I’m excited to see what Hutchison does next with a new concept!

“ The Vanishing Season “ by Dot Hutchison is the fourth and final book of her “ Collector” series. While it could be read as a stand-alone, the reader will not understand some of the references to previous books and the relationships of the characters.
In this one we are once again following an FBI unit in Crimes Against Children led by Vic the team leader and his team of Mercedes, Eliza Sterling and Brandon Eddison with a fourth addition of Cass. The first three all were drawn to this line of work by tragedies that either happened to them or those near to them as children.
In this book they are called in on a missing child’s case of an 8 year old little girl named Brooklyn Mercer.. this case proves to be a struggle for Eddison whose sister Faith, who disappeared at the same time of year and was never found.
As in the previous book you need a suspension of belief and a total ignorance of any procedures or rules that any law enforcement agency would follow. The book focuses far more on the relationships between the team than the actual case and those relationships are just not believable. An FBI team leader who shows up to check on whether you ate? Two members of the same team dating ? Buying houses next door to each other? Throwing a blanket over a body before evidence could be gathered? None of it rings true.
While the last three of the series are good, none lived up to “ Butterfly Garden”
Would I read more from this author? Yes but I hope we are done with this particular group of characters.
Thank you to #netgalley and #thomasmercer for the copy of this book in exchange for my thoughts.
This one is out tomorrow! Let me know what you thought!

As i was to find out, this is the fourth book in a series. I feel that i really do need to read the first three books and shall be doing so in the near future. Nonetheless, the story was enjoyable and it did keep me turning the pages until i came to the end.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my copy. This is my honest review, which i have freely given.

WoW............The Vanishing Season by Dot Hutchison is the forth book in this brilliant series.

The other books in this series are:

1 The Butterfly Garden ★★★★★
2 Roses of May ★★★★★
3 The Summer Children ★★★★★

This book was just brilliant and kept me up all night! I did not want to close my kindle and I wanted to finish it. I really hope this isn't the last book! from Dot Hutchison. But, looking forward to read more of her books.

I highly recommend the entire series. But, you will need to read them in the correct order.

Big Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book, but it just doesn't measure up to the first one. None of the others did either, but it's nice to keep up with crew. I'm a little sad that the adventure seems to be over. Can't wait to see what Dot Hutchison does next!

I just finished this book, not realizing it was the fourth book of a series. As I was reading and saw reference to butterflies and garden, i said hmm...... and yes I have the first book downloaded on my kindle but have not read it. Given the rave reviews of the first book, I will go back and read it. This was not so much a mystery to me, but a love story of families that we made out of pain and the courage to keep going. A lot of tragedies among the main character. I enjoyed reading about it but probably having read the first books would have made it a better read