The Bitter Season

Author: Tami Hoag
Publisher: Brilliance Audio; Abridged edition
ISBN: 1480598992
Language: English
Formats: Kindle,Hardcover,Paperback,Audible, Unabridged,Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged,
Category: Books,Mystery, Thriller & Suspense,Thrillers & Suspense, FREE Shipping,

#1 New York Times Bestselling author Tami Hoag returns to the bestselling series of her career with a Kovac and Liska case that will delight fans and new listeners alike.

A murder from the past. A murder from the present. And a life that was never meant to be.…

As the dreary, bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless. After moving to the cold case squad in order to spend more time with her sons, she misses the rush of pulling an all-nighter, the sense of urgency of hunting a murderer on the loose. Most of all she misses her old partner, Sam Kovac. Sam is having an even harder time adjusting to Nikki's absence, saddled with a green new partner younger than pieces of Sam's wardrobe. Sam is distracted from his troubles by an especially brutal double homicide: a middle-aged husband and wife bludgeoned and hacked to death in their home with a ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. Nikki's case, the unsolved murder of a family man, community leader, and decorated sex crimes detective for the Minneapolis PD, is less of a distraction: twenty years later, there is little hope for finding the killer who got away.

On the other end of the spectrum, Minneapolis resident Evi Burke has a life she only dreamed of as a kid in and out of foster homes: a beautiful home, a family, people who love her, a fulfilling job. Little does she know that a danger from her past is stalking her perfect present. A danger powerful enough to pull in both Kovac and Liska and destroy the perfect life she was never meant to have.

#1 New York Times Bestselling author Tami Hoag returns to the bestselling series of her career with a Kovac and Liska case that will delight fans and new listeners alike.

A murder from the past. A murder from the present. And a life that was never meant to be.…

As the dreary, bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless. After moving to the cold case squad in order to spend more time with her sons, she misses the rush of pulling an all-nighter, the sense of urgency of hunting a murderer on the loose. Most of all she misses her old partner, Sam Kovac. Sam is having an even harder time adjusting to Nikki's absence, saddled with a green new partner younger than pieces of Sam's wardrobe. Sam is distracted from his troubles by an especially brutal double homicide: a middle-aged husband and wife bludgeoned and hacked to death in their home with a ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. Nikki's case, the unsolved murder of a family man, community leader, and decorated sex crimes detective for the Minneapolis PD, is less of a distraction: twenty years later, there is little hope for finding the killer who got away.

On the other end of the spectrum, Minneapolis resident Evi Burke has a life she only dreamed of as a kid in and out of foster homes: a beautiful home, a family, people who love her, a fulfilling job. Little does she know that a danger from her past is stalking her perfect present. A danger powerful enough to pull in both Kovac and Liska and destroy the perfect life she was never meant to have.

The Bitter Season

After a decade in homicide, Minnesota Detective Nikki Leska transfers to the newly formed Cold Case unit. Her first assignment is to take another look at the death of Detective Ted Duffy, who was off-duty when he was shot twenty-five years earlier. Nikki interrogates Duffy’s widow, who subsequently married Thomas, the victim’s twin brother. Meanwhile, Sergeant Liska’s former partner, Sam Kovac, has his own homicide to solve. Someone entered the home of a married couple late at night, brutally beat and slashed them, and absconded with jewelry and other valuables. Sam’s team of wisecracking detectives conduct interviews, do background checks, and look for evidence that will lead to an arrest. As the days pass, they have little to show for their efforts.

In Tami Hoag’s “The Bitter Season,” we observe the misery of people who have been abused and/or have inflicted abuse on others. Among Hoag’s troubled characters are the vindictive Diana Chamberlain, a promising graduate student who loathes her spiteful father; Evi Burke, a social worker with a gorgeous and saintly spouse and appalling memories of her torturous past; Ted’s daughter, Jennifer, a sensitive and fragile woman; and Donald Nilson, a bigoted loudmouth who was Ted Duffy's nasty neighbor. Nikki slowly makes headway on her case, but is stymied by the stubborn refusal of key witnesses to reveal their secrets.

The gruff, hard-nosed, and blunt Kovac is a veteran cop who is knowledgeable, dedicated, and persistent. Nikki, ably assisted by Candra Seley, is tough and determined. Although she adores her kids, she does not allow the demands of motherhood to keep her from putting in long hours to track down Duffy’s executioner.

Nikki Liska is very good at what she does as a detective in the sex crimes unit in Minneapolis. It gives her better working hours and therefore more free time with her teenage sons. She clearly has her priorities straight, a fact that her peer Sam Kovac clearly respects, although Nikki’s tough verbal stance prevents him or anyone else from uttering that respect. Now she and Sam aren’t working together. Instead Nikki has been put to the task of solving a 20 year-old cold case in which one of their peers, Ted Duffy, was shot to death and the killer was never found. No one except a very nasty neighbor even knew the victim well. So it’s quite a large task Nikki has to complete in just a few short weeks. Add to the fact that there’s another detective who never managed to solve the mystery of this murder but is extremely angry that the investigation of it has now been given to Nikki when he’s put in 20 years trying to find the killer.

There are plenty of suspects: a wife who married Duffy’s brother, a daughter who took years to recover some type of sanity after her father’s death, and two foster children who were returned to the system after Duffy’s death.

Sam, on the other hand, has been given the task of investigating the brutally horrific murder of a professor at the University of Minnesota and his wife. The professor and his daughter are not on good terms, as he is vying for a promotion in the East Asian Studies Department, and his daughter has compromised his eligibility by submitting a complaint against him with that same department in which she also works. The two children of these parents have little love apparent and are suspect as well.

In The Bitter Season — the biting cold days in the run-up to Thanksgiving in Minneapolis — the news is dominated by the gruesome home invasion murder of a university professor and his wealthy wife. The homicide detective assigned to the case, Sam Kovac, is a veteran of the police force for whom “the big five-oh was looming large on the horizon.”

Liska and Kovac are a mismatched pair who have worked together successfully as partners on the Minneapolis police force for a number of years. Liska’s ex-husband, also a cop, appears to have the emotional maturity of a seventeen-year-old himself, leaving Liska to raise the boys with little support.

To replace Liska, Kovac has acquired a promising young rookie as his partner, a former MP. “He didn’t want a new partner. He was too old and cranky to break one in.” And as the story unfolds, Kovac proves himself right.

Meanwhile, the force is abuzz with the creation of a new cold case unit, and Liska has opted to join it in hopes she can avoid round-the-clock investigations and spend more time with her two teenage sons. However, against her will she is assigned to a quarter-century-old case that she believes to be unsolvable. And, as luck would have it, the investigation requires far longer hours than she’d hoped.

“It’s cold in Minneapolis”

This being fiction, and genre fiction at that, you won’t be surprised to learn that eventually the two cases prove to be related. But the path from here to there is full of surprises.

• 
  The Bitter Season
  Kovac and Liska take on multiple twisted cases as #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag explores a murder from the past, a murder from the present, and a life that was never meant to be.

  
  

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  The Bitter Season
  ... Sato could never trump, but still, he wanted his sleep. He wanted to look as confident as he felt. Maybe if he closed all the doors between the stairs and the study, the sound would be muffled enough not to bother him. The Bitter Season 43.

  
  

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  A Bittersweet Season
  In telling the story of her own struggle to learn how to care for her aging and ailing mother, a journalist offers helpful insights and advice to other caregivers who feel overwhelmed. Reprint.

  
  

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  Dust to Dust
  A killer who will stop at absolutely nothing to keep a dark and shattering secret . . . From the Paperback edition.

  
  

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  Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet
  Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet by Sara Hagerty is the story of a woman whose life expectations went unmet while her heart became re-acquainted with her first Love.

  
  

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  Find Her
  When Flora herself disappears, D.D. realizes a far more sinister predator is out there. One who’s determined that this time, Flora Dane will never escape. And now it is all up to D. D. Warren to find her.

  
  

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  Bitter Blood
  For years, the human and vampire residents of Morganville, Texas, have managed to co-exist in peace.

  
  

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  Down the Darkest Road
  Once upon a time I had the perfect family.

  
  

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  Bee Season
  The work of a lyrical and gifted storyteller, Bee Season marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented new writer. From the Trade Paperback edition.

  
  

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  Guilty as Sin
  Praise for Tami Hoag and Guilty as Sin “Without a doubt . . . one of the most intense suspense writers around.” Chicago Tribune “A chilling study of evil that holds the reader until the shocking surprise ending.” New York Times ...

  
  

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  The Men of Bitter Creek
  From New York Times bestselling author and romance legend Joan Johnston come two favourite stories about true love and family, available together for the first time.

  
  

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  Dragonfly in Amber
  From the Trade Paperback edition.

  
  

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  Alert
  "This is not a test"--every New Yorker's worst nightmare is about to become a reality.

  
  

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  Wildest Heart
  Rosemary Rogers. Part V: The Bitter Season a Thirty T he storm died, hissing and grumbling into Part V:The Bitter Season.

  
  

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  Punch, Volumes 54-55
  But thrust the hard and heaped-up stones and stinging growths aside, And made way for those parted rills henceforth in one to glide : So letting warm attemper cold, and bitter season sweet, That the waters mixed were cordial, whereof each  ...

  
  

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  Hand-book of American literature, historical, biographical, and critical [by J. Gostwick. The title-leaf is a cancel].
  the act of the Lord Jesus, sounding forth in mo the blast which shall in his own holy season cast down the strength and ... tost in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean,' and sometimes hiding at night in some hollow tree.

  
  

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  Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature, Volume 55; Volume 118
  In that early time the jovial season was one of unstinted eating and drinking, of enormous extravagance redeemed in some measure by the fact that the poor were made glad by ... the bitter season “ Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrate.

  
  

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  The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, Volume 55
  In that early time the jovial season was one of unstinted eating and drinking, of enormous extravagance redeemed in some measure by the fact that the poor were made glad ... the bitter season " Wherein onr Saviour's birth is celebrate.

  
  

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  Episodes of Insect Life
  In so doing, it forms a capacious cavity, which, after lining with a silken web, it appropriates as its dormitory through the bitter season. And a secure asylum does the little slumberer possess ! The burr of his occupation may be shaken ...

  
  

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  The Eclectic Review, Volume 3; Volume 111
  I am forced now, however, „ to seek other pleasures in the bitter season ; and, sooth to say, old December wears a jolly heart enough beneath his icy coat. Pluck up a single ivy leaf from the old wall, see what a jeweller he is. How the dark ...