The Vanishing Season (Ellery Hathaway Series #1)

by Joanna Schaffhausen

Overview

"A gripping and powerful read. It is what we call edge-of-your-seat, rollercoaster of a thriller. You will not be able to put it down before you finish it."—The Washington Book Review

Winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition, Joanna Schaffhausen’s accomplished debut, The Vanishing Season, will grip readers from the opening page to the stunning conclusion.

Ellery Hathaway knows about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived.

When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday—the day she was kidnapped so long ago—Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer’s closet all those years ago.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250199553
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Series:	Ellery Hathaway , #1
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	295,913
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Joanna Schaffhausen wields a mean scalpel, skills developed in her years studying neuroscience. She has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain—how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. Previously, she worked for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and daughter. The Vanishing Season is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

09/04/2017
In Schaffhausen’s powerful if implausible first novel, Ellery “Ellie” Hathaway is the only cop in Woodbury, Mass., convinced that the baffling disappearances from the small town—one every July for the past three years—are connected to each other, and to sadistic imprisoned serial killer Francis Michael Coben. She’s also the only one of Coben’s victims to survive. Fearing the worst as the July window once again looms, Ellie reluctantly reaches out to the one person she thinks might be willing to help: FBI profiler Reed Markham, who cracked the Coben case 14 years earlier and rescued her. The other members of the Woodbury force are less than pleased by Markham’s arrival, especially when it’s followed within days by a grisly present on Ellie’s porch—a severed hand, Coben’s signature. Although the book’s eventual big reveal feels contrived, until then the complex plot and affecting characters—especially gritty survivor Ellie and her basset hound, Bump—make for some nail-bitingly tense thrills. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"[A] stunning debut. Schaffhausen devises a clever storyline, complete with an ingenious pattern, a skillful piece of misdirection and a conclusion that simultaneously troubles and satisfies." —The Richmond-Times Dispatch

"A gripping and powerful read. It is what we call an edge-of-your-seat, rollercoaster of a thriller. You will not be able to put it down before you finish it."—The Washington Book Review

"Poignant and gripping...Schaffhausen keeps the fresh plot of The Vanishing Season churning without resorting to cliches. Believable and flawed characters enhance the realistic twists, down to the denouement. Ellery should be able to support a long-running series.—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“The Vanishing Season won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Novel Competition. Given the precise prose, the suspenseful plot and the emotionally tortured characters, to say nothing of an irresistible basset hound named Bump, it’s easy to see why.”—Associated Press

“Crime fanatics and mystery lovers will love this story. Schaffhausen really nails the genre and the character development beautifully.”—Huffington Post

"Powerful...the complex plot and affecting characters—especially gritty survivor Ellie and her basset hound, Bump—make for some nail-bitingly tense thrills." —Publishers Weekly

"Schaffhausen’s debut is a fantastic, convoluted thriller that will have her audience on the edge of their seats, taking notes to catch every crumb of a clue. Ellery and Reed, her protagonists, are complex yet brilliantly believable, competent yet very imperfectly human.The villain is both evil and cunning. The storytelling is exceptional and the dialogue is powerful. This chilling tale will have readers guessing till the end! This one is sure to end upon the bestseller list." —RT Book Reviews

“Joanna Schaffhausen’s The Vanishing Season is a gripping debut with a plot twist readers won’t see coming. The main character, Ellery Hathaway, is a survivor whose grace, intelligence, and grit reminded me of Clarice Starling.”—HALLIE EPHRON, author of Night Night, Sleep Tight

"Dark, disturbing, and relentlessly sinister—this intense thriller plumbs the darkest corners of terror, survival and psychological damage. Be warned: leave on the light! But start reading right now."—HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN

"The Vanishing Season introduces small-town police detective Ellery Hathaway, a former child victim of an infamous sadistic psychopath. While attempting to hide the scars of past trauma, Ellery must hunt a terrifying serial killer whose methods eerily echo her former abuser’s. Is she next on his list? Schaffhausen does equal justice to Ellery’s inner and outer struggles as she keeps the plot twists coming in this gripping, compulsively readable debut. Be prepared to lose sleep."—ELISABETH ELO, author of North of Boston

"A twisted story with an unforgettable protagonist and a drop-book-in-lap, sneaky twist that will make you say WOW!"—SHANNON KIRK, author of Method 15/33

From the Publisher

07/01/2017
As the only person to have survived the evil intentions of a serial killer, Ellery Hathaway ought to feel relieved. But for three years now, people from her town have disappeared around her birthday, the date of her kidnapping years ago, and soon she's in touch with the FBI agent who snatched her to safety. Winner of the 2016 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award.

Library Journal

Lauren Fortgang narrates this suspenseful debut thriller. Ellery Hathaway, a small-town cop in Woodbury, Massachusetts, has a big secret. Unbeknownst to her community but revealed to listeners early on, Ellery, formerly Abigail, was kidnapped 14 years earlier by an infamous serial killer. FBI Agent Reed Markham cracked the case, and Ellery survived to start a new life. But now a series of disappearances in Woodbury could be connected to Ellery’s traumatic past, and she calls on Markham, who has his own issues, for help. Fortgang trips over a few accents but is otherwise effective. She finds a nice balance between Ellery’s sadness for her stolen childhood and her resolve to move on. Ellery and Markham’s platonic relationship is the story’s driving force, and it sounds entirely authentic, especially as voiced by Fortgang. A.T.N. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2017 - AudioFile

2017-09-03
The survivor of a childhood kidnapping investigates a series of missing persons who may be tied to her own history.Inspired by her traumatic past as the victim of a kidnapping, Abby Hathaway, who now goes by her middle name, Ellery, serves as a member of Massachusetts' Woodbury Police Department in an effort to protect others. But a string of missing persons incidents in her jurisdiction has Ellery worried that she's not as able to protect her fellow citizens as much she would like. Bea Nesbit, Mark Roy, and Shannon Blessing could just be a string of runaways, but to Ellery it seems obvious that their disappearances are signs of something much worse. Ellery's insight into the riddle may be tied to the cards she gets in the mail from someone who appears to know secrets of her past she's tried very hard to hide. Not sure what to do, Ellery contacts Reed Markham, the FBI agent who cracked the case Ellery was once at the heart of and rescued her from sadistic Francis Coben, who was almost certainly going to kill her. Reed has been more fixated on his work than his family, causing no good for either, so he welcomes Ellery's help on an informal basis. He shares her fear that the disappearances may be following Coben's original pattern and her conviction that they need to act soon before someone else vanishes. The biggest obstacle in their investigation is Markham's suspicion that Ellery may be not just an investigator, but a suspect, but this idea isn't given enough weight to intensify the suspense. Though it reads more like a dabbling in the genre than a fully realized thriller, Schaffhausen's debut gives evidence that she may develop into an author more in control of readers' emotional attention in future work.

Kirkus Reviews