The influence of unsteady wake on the flow and heat transfer characteristics in a four-vane linear cascade was experimentally investigated. The unsteady wake was generated with four rotating rectangular plates located upstream of the cascade. Tested inlet Reynolds number based on chord length was set to 66,000 by controlling free-stream velocity. A hot-wire anemometer system was employed to measure turbulent velocity components. For the convective heat transfer coefficients measurement on turbine blade surface, thermochromic liquid crystal and gold film Intrex were used. It was found that the unsteady wake enhances the turbulent motion in the cascade passage and accordingly promotes the development and transition of boundary layer. It was found that the heat transfer coefficients on the blade surface increase as the plate rotating speed increases. However, the increasing of heat transfer coefficients is not significant in the case that Strouhal number is higher than 0.503.