The eighth volume in the Benjamin Justice mystery series, and not a place for beginners to dive in, though probably essential reading for fans of the series.
If you think of a book series as one long book, and each volume as a new chapter in that mega-book, then Spider Season is that chapter that consists of nothing but exposition. There are lots of new characters introduced and new plotlines set up, all of which will surely play out in interesting ways in future volumes, but none of which amount to much in this volume. It's a meandering, digressive installment in which not a lot happens.
As Spider Season opens, Justice has just published a memoir detailing the scandal which forced him to leave journalism in disgrace (he faked parts of a story that won him the Pulitzer), and the memoir seems to be bringing all of the crazies from his past out of the woodwork. There's a former journalistic rival who's determined to find something in the memoir that she can use to destroy him for good; an old college acquiantance who's convinced that his relationship with Justice was far more meaningful than it actually was; the return of a beau who never quite became a romantic interest, but would very much like to; and a mysterious young man who begins stalking Justice (and if you can't figure out his relationship in about ten seconds, well, you don't read enough mystery novels).
There is a death, and it's one that will greatly sadden long-time readers of the series, but even that is handled in about as unexciting a way as could be imagined. Spider Season is a frustrating book. All of these characters and dangling plot threads will surely give Wilson lots to work with in the next two or three installments in the series; I just couldn't help wishing he'd found something to do with all that material in this book.
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