The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag

The Bitter Season by Tami Hoag is a fast, engaging read. As she often does, Hoag tackles issues in depth that many authors shy away from or gloss over. She plays with gender roles, misogynistic attitudes, family dynamics, child abuse, and sexual assault in the midst of following two detectives solving seemingly separate murder cases. Hoag creates characters with enough depth to immerse the reader in their lives leading one to feel a sense of compassion that at times surprises the reader while eliciting enough anger at other times to keep the reader wanting a better outcome for  myriad characters in the book even when the reader knows the outcome must be what it is. The Bitter Season explores real life attitudes and behaviors in the context of a fictional world that both intrigues and provokes thought. Hoag's books, including The Bitter Season, are never merely mysteries to be solved but a look into the conditions that lead to human depravity and the consequences thereof.

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