Summer of the Dead

In Julia Keller's The Season of the Dead, the 3rd installment in the Bell Elkins thriller series, it was one hot summer when the crime rate went up a notch. For Bell Elkins, the county prosecutor for Acker's Gap, West Virginia, she had a full plate on her hands. First her sister Shirley has been released from prison to start her new free life, while she waited for her daughter Carla to visit her that summer. But as she investigated the murder of Freddie Arnett, things took a dangerous turn for the residents of her small town. To make matters worse, someone had been killed at a bar fight, when she had found a lone business card. Besides trying to square away with her sister's needs, she had two homicides to find a connection between the two cases. For Lindy Crabtree, she worked at the gas station to support herself and her sick dad who worked the coal mines and had asbestos poisoning with no much time to life. As she searched for clues to her mother's childhood, someone tried to scare her and clobbered her with a rock. When Bell learned of this assault, things came to a head when the chips fall into place into this puzzle and later stirred this sick plot beyond reason. In the end, both Lindy and Bell were dealt a hard blow at the reality of who would do it and why.

This was a great thriller with so many twists you didn't see coming. I cared about Belfa and how she dealt with a lot in that one hot and dangerous summer. I liked Nick Fogelsong and Brenda Lovejoy. I also cared about Lindy and how she had dealt with carrying the heavy load for her and her father.  Acker's Gap was a picturesque small town with its close-knit community. I could paint the picture of it in my mind. This would hook you and ground you to your chair from the first page to the last with non-stop drama, action, suspense, and plenty of mystery.

Will you be ready to handle the Summer of the Dead?