Margaret Mizushima brings back Deputy Mattie Wray and her search-and-rescue dog, Robo, in the latest in her Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series, Gathering Mist.
Just days before her wedding to veterinarian Cole Walker, Deputy Mattie Wray is asked to fly to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula where a celebrity’s nine-year-old son has disappeared from the film site. The skills of Mattie’s search-and-rescue dog, Robo, are needed in the search in the rainy forests, trails, and creeks. It isn’t long before the search teams learn that other boys have disappeared from the area in the last few years. Then, one of the dogs and several searchers are poisoned, and Mattie discovers arsenic-tainted water.
Fearing for Mattie and Robo, Cole flies in to act as a vet for all the dogs. When they realize River, the missing boy, was probably kidnapped, and didn’t just wander off, the organized search becomes more desperate. Mattie’s greatest fear is that it will be the cadaver dogs that discover the boy, rather than Robo and other air scent dogs.
The sequel to Standing Dead sends Mattie and Robo to a difficult search environment. The story of the search, and the setting, are beautifully developed in a mystery that builds in intensity and suspense. Readers who enjoy Sara Driscoll’s F.B.I. K-9 books will appreciate the emphasis on search-and-rescue dogs.
Margaret Mizushima’s website is https://margaretmizushima.com/.
Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizhushima. Crooked Lane Books, 2024. ISBN 9781639108947 (hardcover), 256p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley through NetGalley in order to review the book for a journal.
