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    The Night Season: A Thriller
    The Night Season: A Thriller
    The Night Season: A Thriller
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Night Season: A Thriller

    Written by Chelsea Cain

    Narrated by Christina Delaine

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    With the Beauty Killer Gretchen Lowell locked away behind bars once again, Archie Sheridan—a Portland police detective and nearly one of her victims—can finally rest a little easier. Meanwhile, the rest of the city of Portland is in crisis. Heavy rains have flooded the Willamette River, and several people have drowned in the quickly rising waters. Or at least that's what they thought until the medical examiner discovers that the latest victim didn't drown: She was poisoned before she went into the water. Soon after, three of those drownings are also proven to be murders. Portland has a new serial killer on its hands, and Archie and his task force have a new case.

    Reporter Susan Ward is chasing this story of a new serial killer with gusto, but she's also got another lead to follow for an entirely separate mystery: The flooding has unearthed a skeleton, a man who might have died more than sixty years ago, the last time Portland flooded this badly, when the water washed away an entire neighborhood and killed at least fifteen people.

    With Archie following the bizarre trail of evidence and evil deeds to catch a killer and possibly regain his life, and Susan Ward close behind, Chelsea Cain—one of today's most talented suspense writers—launches the next installment of her bestselling series with an electric thriller.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateMar 1, 2011
    ISBN9781427212047
    Author

    Chelsea Cain

    Chelsea Cain is the author of the New York Times bestselling Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell thrillers Heartsick, Sweetheart, Evil at Heart, The Night Season, Kill You Twice, and Let Me Go. Her Portland-based thrillers have been published in twenty-four languages, recommended on the Today show, appeared in episodes of HBO’s True Blood and ABC’s Castle, and included in NPR’s list of the top 100 thrillers ever written. According to Booklist, “Popular entertainment just doesn’t get much better than this.” Visit her online at ChelseaCain.com.

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    Reviews for The Night Season

    4/5

    21 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is the least favorite on the series. I love Chelsea Cain and this series but I felt it strayed from the others. Having said the above, I did enjoy it. It was a quick read and I love the way the killer kills his victims. Very ingenious. I will look at the world of octopi with a healthy new respect. The gangs all here and I refer to Archie, Henry and Susan. Gretchen is missing from this book though her presence still lingers.Susan is as entertaining as always and Henry proves his abilities. I'm looking forward to the next installment, actually I've already pre-ordered it. Chelsea Cain doesn't disappoint. Grab this one you'll enjoy it.
    • 5/5
      This series is totally addicting; this book is way less gory and spends some time with the characters we have come to know over the series, Detective Archie Sheridan, intreprid girl reporter Susan Ward and pals. Gretchen Lowell is largely absent which was a nice change, although she is certainly a very compelling character.
    • 4/5
      The previous books in the series, in my opinion, were better. However, I have high hopes for the next in the series, Kill You Twice. I recommend The Night Season to readers who enjoy psychological suspense.
    • 4/5
      I'm a huge fan of this series, and I have to say I was struggling to get into this book in the beginning (no Gretchen at all), but I soon found that this book was very interesting and exciting! Chelsea Cain went an entirely different direction than the other three books, focusing mostly on Archie and Susan in this one.It had been a while since I'd last read her, and I was a bit out of touch with the character's relationships (Claire and Henry, and I forgot who Leo Reynold's was). But this story was interesting (if not a bit far-fetched), and by the end, I could not put it down.I hope to see much more of Gretchen in the next installment. She was greatly missed in this one.
    • 4/5
      I thought that Chelsea Cain's series was called the Archie-Gretchen series. So what happened to Gretchen. She is totally missing in this book. Such a let down since the love-hate thing is so good. This book is the fourth in the Archie-Susan series. I have read them all and the first was clearly the best. This book is no slouch though. Ms. Cain's writing style continues to enthrall me and I remain a fan. Sadly, there is only one more of her books to read.As a former lengthy Portland Oregon resident, I was able to identify with the Portlandia she writes about. She does a good job of portraying the city and the residents. She does however make Portland sound a bit naive - yes Portland is idealistic.The story is well written and should keep the reader interested. Ms. Cain has crafted a set of primary characters that are sufficiently interesting, with their relationships, to serve readers for many more books. The story lines are sufficiently complex to make you want to keep reading.Ms. Cain has a good imagination and lays out the stories well. I am a fan.
    • 3/5
      What drew me to this fantastic series was the allure of a truly frightening female serial killer named Gretchen Lowell. Although I liked "The Night Season," I kept wishing for Gretchen to break out of prison because it's just not the same without her. Maybe next book?
    • 2/5
      Uuuuuugh. Say every book was a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece would be a different part of the book--each character, the plot, the setting, the pacing, description, you get the point. At the end of the book, you should be able to sit back and enjoy the completed masterpiece and how the pieces all fit together perfectly. Oh man, this book is like that person that comes up to you when you are doing a puzzle and then just dumps all the pieces out. (THE EDGE PIECES FIRST, MORON! IT'S A SYSTEM!) I hate those people. The saddest part about this book is how it was a complete letdown in comparison to the other books in the series.

      What's the name of the series? Oh, that's right, it's GRETCHEN LOWELL! It would be great if the most interesting and intriguing character was actually in each book. This one should be called The Night Season (Dying for some Gretchen Lowell, #4) or The Night Season (Where is Gretchen Lowell?, #4). Talk about a circus missing its ringmaster.

      Let's talk for one second about the plot of this one. Actually, I can't do it without a spoiler. The murder instrument is an octopus! Added to that, Susan, the intrepid and mildly interesting reporter from earlier installments, makes a RIDICULOUSLY STUPID DECISION that I just wanted to stop reading afterward...and I would've if I wasn't less than 100 pages from the end. Portland is flooding in this one and it was just too much. Also, in a book about a flood, I find it hilarious that levee was spelled incorrectly TWICE. (Thanks for the smile, editor)

      I will keep reading this series because, as my friend Bridget and I like to say, they are usually solid 3-starrers for us. I love me some crime fiction and I also love Gretchen Lowell. If she doesn't play a major part in the next one, you've lost a reader, Ms. Cain. This one was a major disappointment.
    • 4/5
      If you picked this book up to read more on Gretchen, you won’t find much about her. She is mentioned but not until literally, the last pages of the book. Anyhow, I thought this was a nice break away from Gretchen (you can only drag her out for how many books?) and focuses on a much different serial killer. I really enjoyed reading about this new mystery killer, but the setting and the floods add to an already dark and sinister setting. The floods themselves do add more action and suspense (especially towards the end) so I thought this was a nice addition to an already dark setting. The pace of this plot was really good, and the short chapters makes the reading go much faster than usual. I like how there are no lulls in the plot. Although the sub plot with Susan Ward is not as interesting, it’s still related to the main storyline and provides more background information that is important to understanding the plot. There are quite a few moments of total suspense and thrills. The ending and the revealing of the killer had a lot of action sequences, and as mentioned before, the floods add more to the action and suspense. There was one particular moment in the book where I feared for a character (not going to reveal, am trying to keep this spoiler free!).The only thing I didn’t like about this book is the way the killer killed his victims. It’s a little far fetched and perhaps to some readers, they might find it silly. It’s different, and I have not read anything like this. Although I found it a little unbelievable, it’s still interesting and still worth reading. I’m glad there’s a break from Gretchen. For a moment I thought this Gretchen thing might drag and just might make the series go downhill. It may disappoint some readers, but this plot was well done, the characters are consistent, and I think it’s worth the read. With a tiny cliffhanger ending, I am curious to find out what happens next to Archie and Susan.
    • 4/5
      If you're hoping for a graphic murder spree committed by or connected to the utterly frightening, but hypnotic, Gretchen Lowell, you're going to be disappointed. The Night Season is still a good read -in fact, it's an easier read than previous Archie/Gretchen books - but Gretchen is safely ensconced in prison. Cain introduces a different kind of serial killer in a fast-paced, tense plot. She also gives the reader plenty of damaged, heroic Archie and provides more insight into Susan, too.
    • 3/5
      Gretchen Lowell takes a back seat in Cain's latest, and that's a good thing, at least to this reader's mind. Archie Sheridan is very much present and it was a joy to have him -- mostly -- all to ourselves this time. That the story has its genesis in a long ago flooding of the Willamette River which is threatening to do so again made it a particularly gripping read. There were a couple stretches of credulity here for me, but I enjoyed it and have no trouble recommending it to fans of Archie.
    • 4/5
      This is the fourth book in Chelsea Cain's gory series about a beautiful serial killer and the cop she caught and tortured. The first three books concerned themselves with the twisted relationship between the two of them, but with Gretchen safely in prison, Archie's been given time to heal and begin rebuilding his life without her.Portland is flooding. Heavy rainfall and snowmelt have combined to put much of downtown in danger and thousands of people are working to block the rising water. The water has also unearthed a skeleton and reporter Susan Ward uses its discovery to write an article on the long forgotten flood of 1948, which wiped out the town of Vanport. She's also covering a new story of a serial killer who disguises his kills as drownings, a not unusual event in a city whose river is running wild.This is the best of Cain's series so far. The gore level is a little lower than before, but that's no bad thing when it leaves her room to let her writing shine. Cain has created a wonderful character in Susan Ward, a woman who will eat Jolly Ranchers that have been stuck to a coffee table for weeks and allow a goat into her house when it's raining. The plot is almost unbearably suspenseful in places, the murder weapon should be silly, but is instead deeply creepy.
    • 4/5
      WOW! This new thriller by the author of the Archie Sheridan/Gretchen Lowell series grabs the reader and never lets go. Lowell is mentioned only in passing, and here Archie shows his potential to carry a series on his own. Reminiscent of Lucas Davenport in several ways, Archie leads a team of detectives on the very worst of cases, even as he continues to struggle to overcome the damage done when Gretchen Lowell kidnapped and tortured him. During a massive flood in Portland, Oregon, a serial killer using tiny but extremely lethal octopuses is killing people and dumping their bodies in the floodwaters. As the water rises, the banks of the Willamette River become a very dangerous place to be, whether as a civilian or a cop.Don't start this if you have anything else to do.
    • 4/5
      Chelsea Cain is one smart cookie. She entered the thriller scene in 2007 with Heartsick, the delicious little story of a beautiful and brilliant lady serial killer--Gretchen Lowell, known as the Beauty Killer--and Archie Sheridan, the cop who pursues and is seduced by her. Cain followed up with Sweetheart in 2008 and Evil at Heart the following year, and both novels featured the twisted pas de deux of Gretchen Lowell and Archie Sheridan. She got better as a writer with each book, and, amazingly, managed to keep the relationship between her two antagonists fresh and inventive each time. But, though we readers might never get enough of Gretchen Lowell, Ms. Cain realized that it was time, at least for now, to put her on a back burner and give us something new.The Night Season opens with a brief prologue, a flashback to an historic flood in Portland, Oregon in 1948, in which an entire town was washed away. Cut to present day Portland, which is in the midst of its first truly bad storm of the century and is battening down all the hatches for the flooding to come. So of course, with everybody working so hard and getting so wet, it seems inevitable that bodies will start washing up around town. It's not long before Archie Sheridan realizes that the bodies being found are not simply victims of drowning, but rather, the work of a particularly inventive serial killer, whose weapon of choice is--but that would be telling.Throw in a couple of dramatic rescues of near-drownings by Archie (he does have a bit of a white knight complex); layer in richness of character with the increasingly important Susan Ward, girl reporter and potential love interest; tie in a missing kid; don't forget that historic flood at the beginning; then bring it all to a head with an incredibly tense climactic chase through downtown Portland at night when the river finally decides once and for all to overflow its banks: now you've got an entertainment that can't be beat.Oh, and I'm not giving any plot points away by telling you that The Night Season ends as Gretchen Lowell's sanity hearing begins...mwahaha.
    • 5/5
      Gretchen Lowell, the Beauty Killer, is finally safely locked up so Archie Sheridan can focus on other things. Their love-hate relationship is finally laid to rest and Archie has become much healthier. He no longer pops pills as if they were candy and religiously goes to his therapy sessions. There isn't long to relax because of the torrential, heavy rains causing the Willamette River to come to the cusp of flooding. As a result, drownings are becoming a more frequent occurence and the corpse of a man who died sixty years ago is found, which is possibly a link to a devastating flood that destroyed the city Vanport in 1968. The drownings, upon closer analysis, seem to be linked because of a strange mark found on the palm of each victim. Archie is on the case with quirky, nosy, indomitable Susan Ward. The increasingly bad weather and threatening flood make it harder for them to do their job and easier for the killer to disguise his actions. Can Susan and Archie catch the killer before they become victims themselves? When I found out that Gretchen Lowell wasn't going to be featured in The Night Season, I was a bit wary of being bored or having this one not measure up to the rest of the series. Her presence is so magnetic and her and Archie's relationship is as sick and twisted as they come. I found out that Chelsea Cain's writing speaks for itself and doesn't need Gretchen Lowell at all to be incredibly addictive. It still has the same fluidity and holds my interest until I'm staying up at all hours of the night just to find out what happens. Gretchen's absence also allowed Archie Sheridan and Susan Ward to develop without her corrupting influence. Archie stopped most of his self destructive behaviors and is as healthy as he can be with extensive liver damage, scars, and no spleen. Susan shows another side of herself when she puts the friends that she has made in the police force over her job getting the latest scoop to publish the paper. She also has a larger role in story than she has in the past. Together, they make an odd, yet strangely harmonious mystery-solving pair. The new killer is interesting enough with a very strange mode of murder, but the real star of The Night Season is the threatening flood. It makes simple, inane things very difficult and fills each scene with tension that builds until its climax at the end of the novel. It's almost as if the flood is a looming, silent character that is omnipresent and without human emotions. I really liked the prologue at the beginning of the novel that linked a horrific flood from the past to the current flood and unexpectedly tied the loose ends of the mystery together. It showed the mastery of Chelsea Cain's writing that the flood was not only a biproduct of the weather, but also created a tense ambience and was used as an integral part of the mystery.I enjoyed The Night Season immensely and I highly recommend it to fans of mysteries or books about serial killers. The story is a great mystery that has unexpected twists and turns. This book could be read as a stand alone, but it's better to read the rest of the series to better understand the relationships and motivations of the characters.