The Vanishing Season by Dot Hutchison was published in May 2019 and it is the fourth and final book in The Collector Series. The story follows FBI agents Vic, Eddison, Ramirez, and Sterling, the same four characters from the previous book. The Vanishing Season is told from Sterling’s perspective and gives the reader more insight into her life and Eddison’s life, while also including the other characters lives as well. Hutchison added in a fifth member of the close-knit FBI team, Cass, who was a minor character in the previous novel, The Summer Children. As always returning characters Inara, Victoria-Bliss and Priya make appearances throughout the novel.
Like its predecessors, The Vanishing Season focuses on one case that the team has to deal with which turns out being more than meets the eye. Throughout the previous three novels, the reader learns about Eddison’s sister, Faith, and how she went missing when he was younger. Eddison barely discusses his past with his teammates and because of that the reader is not aware of the entire story until this final novel. When a young girl who looks eerily like Faith goes missing around the same time Faith disappeared all those years ago, the team slowly makes connections to other cases with similar looking girls and stumbles upon a pattern never noticed before.
While The Vanishing Season focuses on searching for a missing child, Hutchison manages to bring up themes about letting go, moving on, and starting over. These are all appropriate themes for the ending of a series and Hutchison does do a great job at showing the reader that these are also a part of life. The Vanishing Season ties the entire series together, but at the same time it manages to make the ending to the series feel rushed and leaves the reader wanting more rather than feeling satisfied with its ending. Hutchison continued to use the slow burn police procedural vibes throughout this final book, but in some spots things were drawn out to the point of the story becoming boring.
The thrilling aspects of the series started out strong with The Butterfly Garden and then dwindled further with each book. Hutchison’s prose is consistent throughout The Collector Series, but at times feels repetitive, especially when it comes to the voices of her characters. The female characters in The Collector Series continue to feel one dimensional leading to too many similarities between them and not enough differences in personality. This leads to all of the stories sounding similar because the narrators sound similar, not because The Collector Series has connecting themes. Having the similarity in characters may be something that some readers enjoy, but overall the lack of diversity in personalities becomes boring for other readers.
Overall, The Collector Series is a fantastic read that should be read and enjoyed by anyone who enjoys crime fiction and police procedurals. Finishing this series was definitely just the beginning of what Hutchison wants to accomplish with her reading career and because of that I am looking forward to seeing what she writes about next.
The Vanishing Season is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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 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.
