Japanese Maples: Japanese maple lost all leaves in summer heat, 2 by Richards1052

Richards1052 wrote:
I live in Seattle. I have had a Japanese maple for 3 yrs. This is the 3rd. It thrived until this summer. I watered it less because I thought it had established itself. But we had a period of no rain for 10 days and one of them reached 91 degrees. Within a day or two all the leaves shriveled and died.

I\'ve attached two pictures of it. Do you think it is dead? Or dormant? If it is alive but dormant, should I continue watering through the summer? Or stop? Should I prune dead branches or leave them as is? The outer branches are quite brittle and break off easily, which makes me fear the whole tree may be dead