Hunting Hour: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery

In Mizushima’s suspenseful, meticulously detailed third mystery set in Timber Creek, Colo. (after 2016’s Stalking Ground), Deputy Mattie Cobb is working with a therapist to process the complex emotions engendered by a recent case when she receives a call to go to the junior high school. There she meets the parents of student Candace Banks, who suffers from asthma and has gone missing without her inhaler. Mattie and her police service dog, Robo, to whom she feels closer than any person, search the wooded hill area behind the school and discover Candace lying dead in the brush. Scrapes on the girl’s face and hands suggest foul play. Mattie suspects Candace’s abusive father, who has a drug and gambling problem, but her investigative team can’t find any solid evidence against him. Mizushima offers a compassionate portrait of Mattie, who has distanced herself from her colleagues and her budding romantic interest, veterinarian Cole Walker, in this rewarding small-town police procedural. [em]Agent: Terrie Wolf, AKA Literary Management. (Aug.) [/em]