Only read a few pages. Writing style just didn't do it for me.

Lots of threads wrap up in this eighth book in the Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series. Mattie Wray and her recently met sister Julia go to a small town in Mexico where there mother has been hiding from the gang that murdered her husband and kidnapped her and her children when Mattie was two. But Mattie and Julia find that their mother and her husband hve fled again, leaving them disappointed.

When Mattie returns to her job as a Colorado Sheriff's Deputy and K-9 officer, she finds a note on her door saying that she'll find him among the standing dead. She alerts the sheriff and grabs her K-9 Robo and heads up to the high country to find out who "he" is.

Discovering the dead body of her mother's husband begins a hunt for her missing mother and leads to more notes and more kidnappings. Meanwhile, her fiancé veterinarian Cole Walker is dealing with cases of selenium poisoning up in the same high country and with canine coronavirus closer to home.

With Mattie as the target of a murderer who was part of the original gang that killed her father, the rush is on to finally unravel that plot and save her mother and sister's lives.

Excellent addition to an engaging series. I really enjoy Mattie's relationship with her K-9 Robo. ( )

campground, Colorado, thriller, suspense, cooperation, procedural, K-9, relationships, family, family-dynamics, friendship, law-enforcement, murder-investigation, murder, attempted-murder, mysteries, veterinarian, poisons, abduction, intense*****

I am addicted to this series.
Deputy Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner Robo find themselves in a mystery that is very personal. Her fiancé is a veterinarian and gets called out to a campground to tend a pair of suddenly sickened horses only to find that they have been poisoned with selenium which can only have been acquired from the horse troughs nearby. Then Mattie and Robo are called out to a stand of dead trees where they discover a dead man tied to a dead tree. That man is the husband of her missing mother (the history of the relationships is defined within the story). Then some valuable puppies are found to have been made ill, possibly also by selenium. Later the dead man is found to have also been poisoned slowly by selenium. Then another K-9 deputy handler is shot and seriously injured. But the next issue is even worse; Mattie's sister has been kidnapped in California and a note is left threatening Mattie. The tension just keeps ratcheting up and law enforcement is stretched beyond their limit.
This is a tense and suspenseful procedural. A really good read!
I requested and received a free EARC from Crooked Lane Books via NetGalley. Thanks! ( )