The Vanishing Season
No Mercy
All the Best Lies
Every Waking Hour
Last Seen Alive
Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Title: No Mercy
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Title: All the Best Lies
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Title : Every Waking Hour
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Title: Last Seen Alive
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Joanna Schaffhausen wields a mean scalpel, skills she 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 as a scientific editor in the field of drug development. Prior to that, she was an editorial producer 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.
Series: Ellery Hathaway #1
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 288
Date of Publication: December 1, 2017
My Rating: 5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two 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―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 all those years ago.
Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't let go.
MY THOUGHTS:
Ellery Hathaway is not only a cop, she is the one who survived. She is the only surviving victim of a brutal serial killer who nearly took her life. She was saved by Reed Markham, an FBI Profiler. It is more than 15 years later and Ellery is overstressed. Not only does she have cases as a police officer, she is desperate to know if there is a copycat killer taking lives currently. As Ellery gets birthday cards on the dates women were killed, she lives in her own kind of fear and eventually places a call to Reed for his help. The killer from years ago, Francis Michael Coben, is on death row, so Ellery really needs Reed's help to discover who is now committing similar crimes.
Reed is all but washed up. In fact, he is not even in the FBI at present. His work has been suffering, his marriage has ended and now he must face the brutal past that Ellery experienced. Ellery really hopes that Reed will be able to work alongside her to discover who the copycat killer is. This is critical to Ellery as it is only Reed that knows her secret, and what connection it is that ties the past to the present.
Ellery's boss Sam, the Chief of Police, and her former lover, wants her to leave things alone. He has no idea why Ellery is pursuing things the way she is. So, while Ellery and Reed are looking for answers, Ellery still has to answer to Sam.
What an excellent introduction to a new series! Ellery is scarred, both physically and emotionally, yet her professionalism shines through. She is flawed, there is no doubt of that, yet she has compassion for the victims, both past and present. The next book in the series, No Mercy, is just as compelling as this one was.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Series: Ellery Hathaway #2
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 307
Date of Publication: January 15, 2019
My Rating: 5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
Police officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI profiler Reed Markham take on two difficult new cases in this stunning follow-up to The Vanishing Season.
Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than "getting in touch with her feelings."
For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.
Ellery seeks advice from her friend, FBI profiler Reed Markham, who liberated her from a killer's closet when she was a child. Reed remains drawn to this unpredictable woman, the one he rescued but couldn't quite save. The trouble is, Reed is up for a potential big promotion, and his boss has just one condition for the new job―stay away from Ellery. Ellery ignores all the warnings. Instead, she starts digging around in everyone's past but her own―a move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently, and at worst, could put her in the city morgue.
MY THOUGHTS:
Currently unemployed as she is now on leave from her job as a police officer, Ellery Hathaway is also under court-mandated therapy. As the the lone surviving victim of a brutal serial killer, and having faced down a copycat killer, she is still dealing with the aftermath. For years, Ellery had been able to keep her secret about who she was from her fellow police officers, but after a copycat killer came into the scene, Ellery’s identity was revealed. The copycat killer is now dead at Ellie's hand. Francis Coben, the killer Ellery survived, is still on death row.
A victim of a brutal assault, Wendy Mendoza, begs Ellery for her help. Ellery asks FBI Profiler Reed Markham for his help on Wendy’s case, which is yet unsolved. Despite his boss’s disapproval, Reed insists on helping Ellery. His boss gives him two days. Two days turn into longer and both Ellery and Reed dig deep for answers.
Meanwhile, another victim at her group was the victim of arson years before and lost her toddler son. It is questionable whether or not the right man was imprisoned for the role in the fire, so Ellery and Reed check into that as well.
The first book in this series, The Vanishing Season, introduced both Ellery and Reed. Both flawed, most notably Ellery, by the time you get to this second book, No Mercy, just about every reader will be just as drawn to Ellery as I am. In fact, I reread all five books in this series back-to-back.
Ellery's need for solitude and Reed's family dynamics play greatly into the fabric of these stories, giving these compelling reads real depth, making them utterly impossible to put down.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Series: Ellery Hathaway #3
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 322
Date of Publication: February 20, 2020
My Rating: Stars
DESCRIPTION:
The highly anticipated third novel in the award-winning Ellery Hathaway mystery series.
FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his mother? Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than forty years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. The trail went so cold that the Las Vegas Police Department has given up hope of solving the case. But then a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Now Reed has to wonder if his mother's killer is uncomfortably close to home.
Unable to trust his family with the details of his personal investigation, Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. Ellery has experience with both troubled families and diabolical murderers, having narrowly escaped from each of them. She's eager to skip town, too, because her own father, who abandoned her years ago, is suddenly desperate to get back in contact. He also has a secret that could change her life forever, if Ellery will let him close enough to hear it.
Far from home and relying only on each other, Reed and Ellery discover young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good. They start tracing his twisted family history, knowing the path leads back to a vicious killer―one who has been hiding in plain sight for forty years and isn't about to give up now.
MY THOUGHTS:
Internal Affairs is investigating officer Ellery Hathaway who has been put on leave after she previously ended the life of a serial rapist. FBI Profiler has flown into Boston to testify on Ellery’s behalf. But Reed knows he is there for more than that. Ellery knows that too. Beyond the sexual chemistry that is pulsating between Ellery and Reed, Reed tells Ellery that he needs her help. The coin is flipped, as it is usually Ellery asking Reed for help.
Reed's mother was murdered when he was an infant and he was immediately adopted into a loving family. Although it is now 40 years later, Reed has discovered something that could prove a very close family member guilty of murdering his mother. Meanwhile, Ellery is dodging phone calls from her father. He abandoned her and her brother when they were young and Ellery has never forgiven him for that.
Reed's quest for answers take them to Las Vegas as Reed has no intention on stopping without finding the answers he is seeking. Danger follows both Reed and Ellery as it has before, but they show determinization when it comes to follow through. Just as the first two books in this series were compelling, this one was equally so.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Series: Ellery Hathaway #4
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 328
Date of Publication: January 26, 2021
My Rating: 5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
The fourth book in Joanna Schaffhausen's heartpounding Ellery Hathaway mystery series, Every Waking Hour....
After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a twelve-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed.
Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.
Ellery knows what it’s like to have the past stalk you, to hold your breath around every corner. Sending one kidnapped girl to find another could be Chloe’s only hope or an unmitigated disaster that dooms them both. Ellery must untangle the labyrinth of secrets inside the Lockhart household -- secrets that have already murdered one child. Each second that ticks by reminds her of her own lost hours, how close she came to death, and how near it still remains.
MY THOUGHTS:
Twelve-year-old Chloe Lockhart has gone missing, and her cell phone was found abandoned. As police officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI Profiler Reed Markham have begun a relationship, he is currently in Boston. When news of Chloe's disappearance is made known, he remains in Boston to work on the case, However, Reed also works on a case of two decades before, with a niggling feeling that they somehow the two cases just might be related.
Ellery and Reed have a complicated relationship. Reed saved Ellery's life after she had been captured and tortured by a brutal serial killer over fifteen years ago. In the past year or so the pair has worked a few cases together and their relationship has grown. However, Ellery remains broken, and that comes to no surprise when it came to the things she suffered. Over the years, Reed has proved to be quite the expert in child abduction cases, although most had tragic results.
Drama affects Reed on another level, as it does Ellery. For Reed, he is concerned that his wife will further limit his visitation with his precious six-year-old daughter. For Ellery, her half-sister lands right in her life and Ellery finds she must adjust to yet another personal change. What a wonderful read, and another five stars in this stellar series.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Series: Ellery Hathaway #5
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 308
Date of Publication: January 5, 2022
My Rating: Stars
DESCRIPTION:
The fifth book in Joanna Schaffhausen's heartpounding Ellery Hathaway mystery series.
Boston detective Ellery Hathaway met FBI agent Reed Markham when he pried open a serial killer’s closet to rescue her. Years on, their relationship remains defined by that moment and by Francis Coben’s horrific crimes. To free herself from Coben’s legacy, Ellery had to walk away from Reed, too. But Coben is not letting go so easily. He has an impossible proposition: Coben will finally give up the location of the remaining bodies, on one condition—Reed must bring him Ellery.
Now the families of the missing victims are crying out for justice that only Ellery can deliver. The media hungers for a sequel and Coben is their camera-ready star. He claims he is sorry and wants to make amends. But Ellery is the one living person who has seen the monster behind the mask and she doesn’t believe he can be redeemed. Not after everything he’s done. Not after what she’s been through. And certainly not after a fresh body turns up with Coben’s signature all over it.
MY THOUGHTS:
Neither police officer Ellery Hathaway or FBI Profiler Reed Markham will ever be able to forget what brought them together. Ellery suffered brutally at the hands of vicious serial killer, and barely survived and Reed was able to save her life. It is now fifteen years later and Reed gets a letter from the killer himself, Francis Corben. If they want to know where the bodies of multiple victims are buried, then Reed must bring Ellery to the prison where he is on death row to speak with him in person.
Finding closure for families is important for both Ellery and Reed, so they reluctantly agree to Corben's request. Meanwhile, it is soon learned that Corben has information that he shouldn't considering the terms of his imprisonment. Then considering the media has never once let up on Ellery and Reed's story is always a cause for concern.
When a new victim is discovered with nothing short of Corben's signature, Ellery and Reed find themselves in a race against time when it comes to striving to find the new killer, all while keeping the media at bay. I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every book in this series and do wonder if this makes the final book for Ellery and Reed. Count me in for more, or bring me more Detective Annalisa Vega titles and I will be a happy camper.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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