When Ryan O’Connelly—the unwilling accomplice of a bank robber turned mass murderer—slipped out of the FBI’s grasp, no one expected to hear from him again, much less of his own volition. But when he shows up at the FBI’s doorstep after almost a year of successful evasion, he has information to point Special Agent Winter Black in the direction of a brutal serial killer.

As Ryan takes the team into the deep, dark web of sinister secrets, Winter receives an even more disturbing message from her brother than the last. She can feel him out there…watching, waiting.

Lucky for Winter, she isn’t afraid of spiders. She’s only afraid when the spider disappears.

While I read this over two days, it was probably only a 3.5 hour read in total. Life has been somewhat chaotic at present. Lots of craziness at work and as usual, my body has taken this opportunity to heap more problems onto my shoulders!

Yesterday I had an accident at work when I was walking up some stairs and the carpet came away from said stair causing me to trip over. I slammed my leg, just below my knee into the edge of the stair. I have a sizable gash, that was grossly bleeding yesterday. It is very painful, so finishing this book was really a treat for me.

This is book 7 in the Winter Black series and by now I’ve grown very accustomed to all the characters involved. While there are set dynamics between characters there is also a fluidity to them that keeps the relationships between them fresh.

I know by now that a portion of the book will be devoted to the POV of the killer or someone affiliated with the killer, so it was easier to be able to delve into the new mind entering within this book. So far, Stone has found a way to make each story individual from the last. I find this aspect important in long book series because I want the plots to stand out from each other and to have a lasting impact on me. Having plots that just blur into each other infuriates me.

In this book we see the return of Ryan O’Connelly, who we were introduced to in Book 2 – Winter’s Curse – but this time he’s arrival isn’t to do with his past as a thief but rather at the urgence that he’s uncovered something suspicious that he wants to help resolve, and to ensure his sister and her family are safe.

As I wasn’t expecting his return, it was a surprise to see him written in the pages, but I can’t deny that he was instrumental in the setup of the plot. Knowing his position at the end of the book, it will be interesting to see if he continues to be featured in further books of the series, or whether he’ll now fade into the background.

There is still the undercurrent plot of Winter’s missing brother Justin and while there is little development with that plot line, some of the main plot in this book does ensure that Winter becomes more openminded of the situation and perhaps has dissipated the lingering denial she held for her brother’s personality.

We also see a lot of Autumn Trent in this book as she is brought in for her psychology capacity. The burgeoning friendship between her and Aiden is still simmering but I don’t think it’s ready to boil over yet. I get the feeling that Stone is setting up Autumn’s boss as a future plot line, but I could be mistaken.

Winter and Noah are still very much in a bubble of contentment, and I’m loathed to allow them leave it. I enjoyed their friendship, but I enjoy it more now that they’ve admitted their feelings to each other. In the face of all the crime they deal with, it is nice to see the two characters come together.

We also get quite a bit of Agent Bobby in this book but hardly any Agent Sun.

Now, I hadn’t had much thought as to the ending of this book because the climactic pages themselves, happen several pages prior. The ending caught my attention because it reminded me of a part of plot from a previous book in this series that I had completed dismissed as being solved, but perhaps not. That was a clever bit of writing on Stone’s part, I very into book series that have linking plots and characters throughout, so my enjoyment of the final few pages was rather high.

My only complaint I suppose, if I had to name one, was that this book is short. I’ve become used to these books being 300+ pages but this one was 279. It doesn’t seem like much of a difference, but I really felt it. That isn’t to say that the book doesn’t work with the shorter page count, it absolutely works, it was just a niggle that I found annoying.

The next book in the series is called Winter’s Storm and I can’t even begin to guess in what direction the book will go. I tried to get a sense from reading the blurb but really all that did was fill me with excited adrenaline!

As for this book, I give it: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐