Devils at the Door by Tessa Wegert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
🖤💚🖤💚🖤💚🖤💚🖤💚🖤💚🖤
Devils at the Door is the 5th-book in Tessa Wegert’s Shana Merchant series. I’ve really enjoyed all the previous novels, and was excited to get to this one.
I’m happy to report, this is just as engaging as all the rest. It was so good for a number of different reasons, but my favorites were the overall mystery and the fact that Shana’s niece, Hen, is in town and plays a starring role.
If you are unfamiliar with this series, it follows Senior Investigator, Shana Merchant, and her partner, Tim Wellington, delivering solid Police Procedural action and intrigue throughout.
The setting is the Thousand Lakes region of upstate New York, which sits on the border to Canada. In this installment, as mentioned above, Shana’s teenage-niece, Henrietta, known as Hen, comes to live with her following a rebellious streak leaves Shana’s brother and sister-in-law at wits end.
Shana is happy for Hen to come stay, but is surprised by the changes she sees in Hen once she arrives. Gone is the cheerful, sweet little girl she remembers. Taking her place is a sullen, secretive teen, who seems obsessed with the macabre and displays odd behaviors.
The mystery begins when a local teenager drowns on the shores of the uninhabited Devil’s Oven Island, a frequent, yet dangerous, party spot for young people.
Responding to the call of the unresponsive teen, Shana is shocked to find Hen there, along with a couple of other teens. Hen just got to town, Shana didn’t even realize she had made friends yet, and she snuck out at night? Shana is left reeling by all these developments at once.
The circumstances surrounding the drowning are so unclear, and none of the teens at the scene are talking. How is Shana going to get to the bottom of this before the suspicions fall on Hen? She’s the outsider, a loner, a bit unusual, the one people aren’t going to believe.
Shana digs in and ends up discovering a few buried secrets that the adults of the town would rather keep buried, but how is any of that related to the recent drowning?
I loved this mystery, especially having the added pressure of Hen being involved. The stakes were particularly high for Shana, and you could feel that pressure reverberating throughout her life.
Subsequently, there was some exploration of Shana and Tim’s relationship and all that sort of shined a light on how Shana’s past may still be negatively effecting her.
Her traumas are certainly a lot to get over, so it’s no surprise. I think maybe Shana had thought it was more put to rest than it actually is though, so it was nice to see her examining that closer.
I frequently find myself saying about Adult Mystery series that they can be read in any order. And while that’s true here, it is a standalone mystery, this is one of the cases where I believe you are best served to start this series at the beginning and read them all the way through.
Wegert has taken great care developing her characters and sense of place. Shana in particular is such a well-fleshed out MC. She is on such a journey in this series and it would be most impactful for you, as the Reader, to start at the beginning with her.
Trust me, they’re all so good, you’ll be happy you did. Personally, I’m excited to get my hands on the 6th-book. I hope this series continues on for a long, long time. 25-books wouldn’t be enough. Keep ’em coming, Wegert!!
Thank you so much to the publisher, Severn House, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This was a great mystery featuring one of my favorite detectives.
I can’t wait for more Shana Merchant!!!