3.5 stars
This is the third installment in the Shana Merchant series, and you definitely need to read these books in order or you'll be lost.

I really liked that this wrapped things up well in the end. All of the loose ends are tied up and the mysteries are solved. Shana is still on the hunt for Abe/Bram, and there is also another death that occurs near by. Are the two related?

What didn't work so well for me was that this book was a bit slower paced and didn't have as much action as the first two. There weren't any major surprises. However, Wegert is a fantastic writer and I couldn't help but be pulled into the story, because I have been long anticipating the ultimate resolution of the case that started in Death in the Family and continued with The Dead Season. Shana is a strong heroine and a compelling main character, I have been rooting for her throughout the series and was not disappointed with her overall character arc.

I do recommend this series, especially if you enjoy police procedurals and books about creepy serial killers.

Thank you for this advanced copy. What a total whirlwind of a story. I really enjoyed the premise and character development.

TITLE: DEAD WIND
SERIES: Shana Merchant Book 3
AUTHOR: Tessa Wegert
PUB DATE: 4.5.2022 Available Now

Synopsis

The body is discovered on Wolfe Island, under the shadow of an enormous wind turbine. Senior Investigator Shana Merchant, arriving on the scene with fellow investigator Tim Wellington, can't shake the feeling that she knows the victim - and the subsequent identification sends shockwaves through their community in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York.

REVIEW

I loved the first two books and the third one was highly anticipated for me. Glad to be back with Shana and Tim as they investigate another murder and this time with some sinister take on politics and that continual intense moments with Shana’s previous captor Bram, and his relationship with Shana.

The writing is intense, gripping, and I just devoured it! My little thrilling and suspenseful loving heart was so happy for this five star worthy read I really enjoyed!

Dead wind is the third installment in the Shana Merchant series and it’s a great continuation of the main arc that has been developing since the beginning of the books: Shana’s cousin, Bram, is now a dangerous serial killer and she needs to find him before he kills more people.

This time, a woman’s body is found at the base of a wind turbine. It is soon discovered that the dead woman was a government official who had just been convicted for getting money in order to promote certain government contracts. The details of the crime could point towards this being another of Bram’s crimes, but it is also possible that this is an unrelated issue, and Shana must get to the bottom of this before it all gets more out of hand.

I enjoyed reading this book even though it was not very suspenseful or surprising. The characters felt less developed than in previous books, and the endings of both mysteries presented were a bit underwhelming which makes me think that maybe we’ll find out later that at least one of these mysteries hasn’t truly been revealed yet.

Anyway, I did like reading this book and I will absolutely continue with this series is the author publishes more! Three stars!

An interesting and standard police procedural. I admit to not reading the previous books in the series and I may read them. This was an interesting story. Nothing that stands out character or story wise. A good, solid murder mystery.

**4.5-stars rounded up**

Dead Wind is the third book in Tessa Wegert's Shana Merchant series. I really enjoyed the first two books of the series and am happy to report this installment is my favorite yet!

Following Senior Investigator, Shana Merchant, and her partner, Tim Wellington, this series delivers solid Police Procedural action and intrigue. The setting is the Thousand Lakes region of upstate New York, which sits on the border to Canada. In fact, in Dead Wind, the body that kicks off our mystery is actually found on Wolfe Island in Canada, at the base of a wind turbine.

Shana has an uneasy feeling about the case from the start. When it turns out that the victim is actually from their own community, it starts to hit real close to home. They need to solve this one. Both Shana and Tim are concerned that the monster from Shana's past, serial killer, Blake Bram, may be back to playing his old games. It's far from cut and dry though, there's a lot of other possibilities.

I was so happy to be returning to this series. Wegert always does a great job of pacing her mysteries and this one is no exception. I was interested and engaged from start-to-finish. These books are layered as well, which I appreciate. There's always the main crime that is being investigated, but additionally, Shana has a super intriguing past and that has been incrementally revealed over the course of these first three books.

This one had some local politics involved, hidden secrets and family drama. What elevates it for me though, is the shadow of Blake Bram lurking around every corner. That element ups the stakes and makes it all feel a bit more dangerous.

While I would normally say that most Adult Mystery series can be read in any order, or even as standalone novels, I would highly recommend reading this series in order. I feel that's the most impactful way to take these stories in.

Shana and Tim are both fantastic main characters to follow. I am hoping this series lasts for a long time, but I'm not sure how many books are actually slated for the series.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Severn House, for providing me a copy to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity!

Thank you to Severn House and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was okay for me. This is my first book from the author. It’s part of a series but can be read as a stand-alone, sort of. I felt it didn’t give enough background that I was a bit confusing at times. The end also felt quick and too wrapped up in bow to feel good about.

There are great reviews here, read those, too!

Dead Wind is the 3rd book in the Senior Investigator Shana Merchant series written by Tessa Wegert and it is my first in this series. Shana arrives on the scene with fellow investigator Tim Wellington when a body is found on Wolfe Island, Ontario. It's Hope Oberon, a convicted government officer of development.

Set in Alexandria Bay, in the Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York, the story had me captivated from the very first page. Tessa Wegert's writing style is smooth and her plotting is A1. Local politics, history and secrets from the past are unearthed, the connections complicating the murder mystery and may even reveal Shana’s own hidden past. This taut read kept me guessing, but I think I would benefit from reading books one and two which I fully intend to do.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Severn House via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

Tessa Wegert gives us the most perfect ending to the story of investigator Shana Merchant with Dead End, the third installment in the series. While I am so sad to see this series come to an end, I also cannot wait to find out what Tessa Wegert has in store for us next!
She can write a police procedural with perfection and I love the intricacies of her characters. I do not read a lot of series, so this was very enjoyable to see some of these characters develop and grow. I am so thankful to booksforwardpr and Tessa for this digital ARC, when I saw the book was coming I had to see what Shana was getting into next! This books starts out with the discovery of a small town woman’s body, that thrusts Shana and Tim back into a murder investigation. I love the atmospheric small town touch of this book and all the passion that still exists between Tim and Shana. He will go to any length to keep Shana safe, but she will do anything to finally catch Blake Bram, her cousin who held her captive eighteen months ago. As they try to figure out if this was Blake sending another message to Shana, they find out secrets that have been long buried in this quiet town.

If you haven’t started this series yet, I honestly envy you! To get to read it with fresh eyes and experience all the thrills for the first time. But I also must encourage you to start reading! Death in the Family and The Dead Season are equally as intriguing and captivating. This book came out yesterday and you will not be able to put it down!

In the third novel in Tessa Wegert’s Shana Merchant series, our protagonist and her colleague, Tim Wellington, are called out to Wolfe Island, Ontario, where the body of a middle-aged woman has been found at the base of a wind turbine at a wind farm on the island. Tim thinks he recognises the strangled corpse, but he can’t quite place her.

Full review here: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2022/04/06/dead-wind-tessa-wegert/ and on Crime Fiction Lover: https://crimefictionlover.com/2022/04/dead-wind-by-tessa-wegert/

I found the procedural aspect of this book to be pretty interesting. All of the steps, motivation and different leads the main investigators have to look into and that process was good and read similar to a detective show episode. This book is part thriller but mostly investigative. The characters were fairly interesting and I found the main characters development of living and pursuing what she wants in spite of her fear to be refreshing.

The main downfall of this book was the ending. I found it to be much too convenient and quick to be any kind of satisfying. Especially given that this is the third installation, I can't imagine the wrap up to Bram's murder spree cases to be any sort of satisfying. Overall, I feel this book could have been a bit shorter if it was going to rush the ending so much and give us less of the dead ends and more of the suspense.

“𝙋𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣’𝙩 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙤𝙧 𝙗𝙖𝙙, 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛𝙞𝙨𝙝, 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚. 𝙈𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚, 𝙄’𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙, 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙪𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙨.”

First, I want to say thank you to @suzyapprovedbooktours and @tessawegert for providing me with a ecopy of Dead Wind for this tour!

This book picks up right where book 2 left off and then jumps right to 5 months later which I loved. It’s once again told in first person from Shana’s POV. This book is both plot and character driven which I love.

Side note, I LOVE Shana. Once again, Tessa has proved why she has became an auto-buy author for me. Her writing style is so smooth and she is able to captivate her readers from the very first page. I stumbled upon this series through @suzyapprovedbooktours and I have been hooked ever since. I loved the characters brought back from book 2 and thoroughly enjoyed the new characters we were introduced to. I was in the edge of my seat the entire read and it had me continuously guessing and trying to solve the mystery. Which I didn’t fully because wow what a wild and amazing ending! Did I immediately message the author to find out if I will have more? Yes, yes I did. I need more of this series because I’m not done with Shana Merchant yet. I highly recommend this series, you won’t be disappointed!

Dead Wind is the third installment in the Shana Merchant series and in this case is mandatory to read them in order to fully comprehend Shana’s story, as her background plays a huge part in the series.

After her last encounter with serial killer Bram, Shana’s on tenterhooks, afraid he’ll strike again when she least expects it. When a woman’s body is discovered under a wind turbine, Shana thinks it could be Bram’s work but, is he back or could the victim’s past in local politics be the reason behind the murder?

This is such a fun series. Shana is a strong and relatable lead. It’s been great seeing her grow throughout these three books, especially when it comes to trusting her colleagues. She’s become a much more sympathetic character. Even though these books are mostly plot driven, the characters are also an essential part of them.

While in book one Shana’s past felt like an add-on, not really integrated with the rest of the plot, in books two and three her backstory weaves and mingles with the current cases she’s investigating. I also liked how Bram’s character has developed throughout the series. He’s gone from merely a name to a fully developed character. We really get to know him so that made my feelings for him much more intense. I was curious to see what direction the author was gonna take with the resolution of this plot line, as imo it needed to close already, and overall it was really satisfying.

The murder mystery had lots of misdirection which kept me guessing, but I felt its resolution was a bit out of left field considering how the investigation had developed till then.

Although this could be the perfect closing for a trilogy, I sincerely hope we get more Shana as this has become a really enjoyable series.

Thank you to my friend Kim for another great buddy read!

Thanks to NetGalley and Severn House for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Dead wind by Tessa Wegert.
A Shana Merchant Novel Book 3.
The body is discovered on Wolfe Island, under the shadow of an enormous wind turbine. Senior Investigator Shana Merchant, arriving on the scene with fellow investigator Tim Wellington, can't shake the feeling that she knows the victim - and the subsequent identification sends shockwaves through their community in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York.
A very good read with good characters. Great story. 4*.

Tessa Wegert is the author of three Shana Merchant mysteries with Dead Wind her latest release. Shana is a former New York police detective now residing upstate in the Thousand Islands region. In earlier books Shana had encountered a serial killer, so when a dead body is discovered on Wolf Island it raises the possibility of his involvement. As the investigation intensifies, it appears Shana may have caught the attention of a stalker or is it connected to her current murder case? Local politics, history and secrets from the past are unearthed, as these connections complicate the murder mystery and may even reveal Shana’s own hidden past. An enjoyable police procedural with a three-and-a-half-star read rating. With thanks to Legend Press the author, for an uncorrected advanced copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given.

Let me start with I didn’t realize this was in the middle of a series, but it wasn’t a problem getting lost in the story, but I suspect having read the first books would have made this one more enjoyable. There is the crime in this book and another that has been running throughout the series.

This one is slightly more emotional than your normal police procedural due to the main character’s connection to the case. The setting was atmospheric and added to my interest. The book is fraught with tension right from the start and kept me guessing. Shana, the main character, is flawed but likable. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away since it is full of twists and turns that are part of the appeal.

I will be going back to see how all of this started. This is a good series for those crime junkies like me.

Thanks for the opportunity to review! This is a fantastic series.

Link to 4/4/2022 Instagram post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb8NYVdLPmR/

Unfortunately I did not know this was part of a series. It can be read as a stanD alone but it left me very confused at times. However I really did enjoy the writing style and will check out the first books

Tessa absolutely outdid herself with Dead Wind! I'm so glad that I read the 2nd book in the Shana Merchant series, The Dead Season, right before this one. I needed to know what would happen to Shana ASAP - And now, the rest of the people in her life (Tim, lookin at you)! I can only hope that this series continues, but given the ending to this one (which in my mind was perfectly done), I'm not sure where it will go next. I love the way that with each and every book, Tessa draws you more into the characters so that you feel as if you're in the story with them. This one had me thinking, guessing, and for a detective story really did give me all of the feels.

‘So how exactly is this going to work?’

A body is discovered on Wolfe Island, near an enormous wind turbine. When Senior Investigator Shana Merchant and her colleague Tim Wellington arrive at the scene, she feels that the victim is familiar, and the subsequent investigation confirms this. Hope Oberon, convicted with others for defrauding the government, had not yet been sentenced for her crime. Hope had many enemies in the Thousand Islands region of New York and had received threats from environmental groups. Could her killer have been one of the environmentalists? Early investigations seem to point this way.

But Shana is also concerned about other cases. Blake Bram, her cousin, is a ruthless serial killer who had once abducted Shana and recently abducted and injured a child. Shana knows that he is watching her, and wonders if he was involved in Hope Oberon’s murder.

‘The only thing worse than not having a single lead on a homicide is watching a case fall apart.’
While I have not read the first two books in this series, there’s enough detail provided for me to understand Shana Merchant’s background. To solve Hope Oberon’s murder, Shana Merchant has to delve into the past of a number of community members. Old grudges and long-held secrets complicate the investigation as does the spectre of Blake Bram.

Shana is torn between her feelings for Tim and the need to keep those she cares for safe. And the personal aspect becomes complicated when her toxic ex-boyfriend and Tim’s ex-girlfriend form a relationship.

‘Trust is a trickster. We convince ourselves it’s safe to give up and give in.’

A fast-moving novel that held my attention from beginning to end.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Severn House for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith