This FBI agent has come to expect almost anything—just not this…

When Agent Mercedes Ramirez finds an abused young boy on her porch, covered in blood and clutching a teddy bear, she has no idea that this is just the beginning. He tells her a chilling tale: an angel killed his parents and then brought him here so Mercedes could keep him safe.

His parents weren’t just murdered. It was a slaughter—a rage kill like no one on the Crimes Against Children team had seen before. But they’re going to see it again. An avenging angel is meting out savage justice, and she’s far from through.

One by one, more children arrive at Mercedes’s door with the same horror story. Each one a traumatized survivor of an abusive home. Each one chafing at Mercedes’s own scars from the past. And each one taking its toll on her life and career.

Now, as the investigation draws her deeper into the dark, Mercedes is beginning to fear that if this case doesn’t destroy her, her memories might.

Series:

The Collector Series

Book 3

Can be read as a standalone

Book Type:

Psychological Thriller

Review: The Summer Children

A mysterious “angel” doles out vicious justice, delivering bloodied children to an agent’s doorstep in Dot Hutchison’s THE SUMMER CHILDREN. One by one, each child recounts a chilling tale where they’re forced to watch the murder of their abusive parents, who have made them suffer unimaginable cruelty. They’re safe now, the angel tells them.

Agent Mercedes Ramirez knows these kids’ story all too well, she’s lived it too. But she doesn’t understand why her, why they’ve been entrusted to her care.

As Mercedes and her team work to identify the killer, more parents are savagely murdered, more children covered in blood are dropped off for her to keep safe. Every child’s story dredges up her own real-life nightmares and they’re beginning to take a toll. Worse yet, the angel assassin is starting to make mistakes, changing the game altogether.

THE SUMMER CHILDREN is the third and final standalone thriller in Dot Hutchison’s Collector trilogy, and it’s as clever and addictive as it is chilling and disturbing. Hutchison holds no punches in this edgy series—it’s gruesome and dark, the crimes vividly depicted. I absolutely loved our heroine, Mercedes, who anchored this suspenseful narrative with both vulnerability and strength. Her story and her relationships helped to strike the right balance between emotional gravitas and edge-of-your seat suspense. It’s certainly a novel that’s difficult to put down, or in my case, hard to stop listening to it (on Audible).

While I never finished THE ROSES OF MAY, the first book—THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN—is as fantastic as this finale.  I can’t recommend these books highly enough.

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