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.
Momma Says: 4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐
Every Waking Hour is suitably titled if for no other reason than Ellery and Reed are incapable of turning off and taking a real break. Of course, if you've followed the series, you'll already know how completely dedicated these two are. This fourth book gives us a missing persons case combined with a cold case, and things do get complex and twisted, but it seems nothing's too big for this pair. There's also a bit of romance, or maybe an attempt at romance, and not everyone is on board with Reed and Ellery being a couple. Things do take a bit of a melancholy turn on that front.
One of my favorite things about this series is the combination of the personal and the case. At this point, I feel like I know Ellery and Reed - well, I know Ellery as much as we're allowed to know her. She's a product of her past trauma, which is both what drives her and what keeps her from moving forward. Reed is seriously smart and between his talent for piecing things together and her raw instinct, they make a formidable force. I will say that I'd recommend starting at the beginning of the series to get the most from each book. The cases are different, but there are so many layers to these characters that you won't want to miss any of them.
As far as this fourth Ellery Hathaway book, the case is riveting and keeps you guessing, and the characters are just as intriguing. All in all, another well-written, suspenseful addition to the series.
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