A decade ago in the small inland town of Lake Wales, Florida, a massacre took place during a political fundraiser for Birch Fairmont, leaving him and two others dead in the aftermath. No one was ever apprehended for the brutal crimes. Wanting to leave all the bad memories behind, his widow Diane Fairmont moved to Tampa and became involved with the Common Way Foundation. She is now their candidate for governor of Florida. However, the receipt of a 10-year-old newspaper photo of the crime with the words, "I'M BACK, MISS ME?" written in blood-red marker across it disrupts all their plans.

Cab Bolton, son of famous movie star Tarla Bolton, who is Diane's closest friend, is dismissive of almost everything except his work. Distancing himself from his mother, Cab has gone from working for the FBI to the police to private investigative work and back to the police in locales around the world. For the past two years, he's inhabited the Gulf coast of Florida as a detective for the Naples Police. Of course, he's the one called upon to investigate the threat against Diane. Cab is skeptical that this is just a political ploy to get sympathy for Diana -- which of course, means more votes. The close relationship between Diane and Tarla, as well as a history between Cab and Diane, make it doubly hard for him to be objective.

When Cab starts questioning the maneuvers of the Common Way organization, especially the death of one of its researchers, the more involved he becomes in learning the truth behind a veil of secrecy that's been in place for over a decade. With the advent of a tropical storm in the region, time is running out for Cab to discover the truth before more murders occur.

Brian Freeman's SEASON OF FEAR is so masterfully developed you can almost feel the intensity of the tropical storm as it overwhelms the locale and directly affects the characters' actions. This adds a significant element to the already suspenseful plot, providing an edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting reading experience with an exhilarating conclusion.