There are four books in this series, I picked the first one up over Christmas and finished the last one on the second of January.
Yes, I was hooked.
This is a remarkable series, not just for the stories, which are superb, but for the structure and the way they are written.
The stories centre around an FBI team in the Crimes Against Children division.
Each book contains a gripping story but is told from a different team members point of view, with that character in each book being written in the first person.
In the case of the first book the first person, present tense is mainly used for one of the victims.
This, almost unique, style of writing over the series gives a great insight into the personality, emotions, and relationships in high profile investigation teams.
#1 The Butterfly Garden
Teenage girls kidnapped from the streets and held inside a secured garden. The man who takes them is only known to them as the gardener. He’s a collector, a collector of butterflies, in this case human butterflies.
Once the girl has been kidnapped the are subdued and their back is tattooed with their own unique, colourful set of butterfly wings. The girls is given a new name and released into the garden where they interact with other girls who are also being held.
The butterflies are treated well, except when the Gardener wants sex. In his mind he’s being gentle and saving them from the outside world. But they have a life span and when they reach 21 he kills them, before putting them into a glass frame in resin to display them.
But he’s not the biggest threat to the girls. His son is a monster and uses, and abuses, the girls in the worst way.
Special Agent Victor Hanoverian, and his partner Brandon Eddison, and their team investigate the latest disappearance and start to piece together a case that surprises even these veterans.
The pace of this story is frantic. Following one of the girls experience from just before she’s taken, until ……..well until the end of the book but that would be a spoiler.
#2 The Roses of May
This time Eddison is the main character with the story being written in the first person tense from his point of view.
Young women are being killed and posed with flowers on, or around the body. The type of flowers are different for each girl and seem to have a relate to her in some way.
One of the victims sisters, Priya, is receiving flowers, specifically the same type of flowers the victims were posed with, in some type of predictive countdown to another killing, but is she the target.
Eddison has a relationship with Priya, he had investigated her sisters murder and had kept in touch.
A running theme throughout the series is that the team form friendships with victims, and in some cases the bond is more like family. Often the victims become unofficial councillors, they understand the team like nobody else can, and from very different positions, share the experiences of the crimes they are involved in.
In this story the relationship, between Eddison and Priya, is the main focus of the story and it works really well.
#3 The Summer Children
Team members are introduced through the series, in this book Special Agent Mercedes Ramirez, a background character in the previous books, takes centre stage.
Blood covered children, clutching teddy bears, are being left on her doorstep.
Each time the child is told to talk to Ramirez and that she’ll look after them. They are told by a woman who’s forced the child to watch her kill their parents, telling them that they would be safe now and that she’s saving them.
Ramirez has always given the child victims of the crimes she investigates a teddy bear to help comfort them. The killer is now using this against her.
Her emotions are fraught as she tries to dig into past investigations in an attempt to find a link. The killer is described as looking like an angel, and in a really unusually spin the children are all sure it’s a woman.
#4 The Vanishing Season
One of the newest members of the team, Eliza Stirling takes the first person point of view for the final book in the series.
A young girl goes missing around Halloween time. She was walking home from school in a nice safe neighbourhood and nobody saw a thing.
The girl bears a striking resemblance to Stirling, enough for her to be moved to a desk for the investigation because her looks are to emotional for the family.
Her frustrations are shared by her partner Eddison. It’s the anniversary of his sister’s disappearance, and she was about the same age as the latest victim, and had the same blonde hair and blue eyes, and he is also sidelined because of the triggers the similarities might bring.
The detective in charge of looking for Edison’s daughter is long retired but he never stopped looking for her.
When he, and others start to link numerous disappearances over nearly 30 years, it looks like a serial kidnapper has been taking girls for generations.
The story of the investigation, in this book, is a tool to examine the relationship between Stirling and Eddison, and the extended team of FBI agents and past victims.
It’s one of the best finales to a series I’ve ever read.
Emotions run high, friendship and relationships are strained the bonds are tight but not indestructible.
This is a short but brilliant series. I had not heard of Dot Hutchison before but these books have been available for some time. Why she’s flown below my radar I have no idea. But she is firmly on it now.
Publisher Thomas & Mercer
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