Dot Hutchison is lucky I haven’t met her, because I have many things I wish to say to her. Namely, how can she leave us readers to blubber and wipe our tears all on our lonesomes after that heartbreaking, beautiful read. The Vanishing Season is not the read I expected as a whole, but it is much more hard-hitting and compassionate, and something that will stick with me for months, if not years. This book is seriously no joke.

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.

Content warning: The Vanishing Season contains themes of child abduction, emotional abuse, family grief, survivor’s guilt/family guilt, mental health problems, terminal illness (mentioned), verbal abuse, and violence. The Vanishing Season deals with a lot of personal grief, guilt, and similar themes from family of those abducted. It can be a very confronting book, especially for those suffering from similar feelings. Reader discretion is advised.

The Vanishing Season does something truly gut-wrenching yet brilliant, and that is hold the family trauma and grief close to the action of the story. From The Butterfly Garden, we know that Eddison have lost a younger sister, and that detail has been drawn through the entire series. Now, we all face it, and it is devastating to watch. This novel is largely from Eliza Stirling’s perspective, placing her as the point of contact between the reader and the case. As things get tense, daunting, or terrifying, Eliza is there to screen us from the brunt force of the blows. I appreciate this a lot, because you can still see her unwavering love, care, and determination throughout every stage of this case, but she is also removed enough on a personal front to not be choked out by grief and emotion like Eddison. This case has been the making of Eddison as a man, it has haunted him for decades, and everything he is going through is twisted up in a hurricane of bereavement, fury, pain, and hope. If this had been his book, it wouldn’t have turned out as good as it has.

The stragglers of this found family continue to come marching in, and there always seem to be open arms ready to receive them. But I said so much about that in my The Summer Children review, so I will omit it from this one. Just know, it all applies, and it is just as effective, if not more so given the circumstances and revelations. What I will talk about though is the focus this book has on the families and the grieving process. Not to spoil anything, given this information is in the blurb, but these cases are from a decades-long string of missing persons, and there are many people who are still actively grieving, not to mention who have made it their life’s goal to discover the truth. The stakes are high, the emotion constantly balancing on a knife’s edge, and we get to see the healing processes begin for so many. Reading The Vanishing Season genuinely brought me to tears because the raw emotion flying off the pages hit like a brick. There is no way you don’t feel at least a shred of what these characters feel, and it makes this novel one of the most hard-hitting, relatable crime fiction novels out there for me.

The Collector series is incredible, visceral, and chilling. It will have you weeping, then the next minute you will be smiling and laughing, maybe while tears are streaming down your cheeks. It will evoke all sorts of feelings, and leave an imprint that will not fade for a long time. Dot Hutchison has done an astounding job with this series, and I know I will be thinking about these books for some time, especially The Vanishing Season. I will save my praises for my series review, but know it will be lengthy.