Hunting Hour (Timber Creek K-9 Series #3)

by Margaret Mizushima

Overview

RT Reviewers' Choice Award finalist for Best Mystery: A string of disappearances leads Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner, Robo, into another bone-chilling investigation

Deputy Mattie Cobb is in a dark place and has withdrawn from Cole Walker and his family to work on issues from her past. When she and her K-9 partner, Robo, get called to track a missing junior high student, they find the girl dead on Smoker’s Hill behind the high school, and Mattie must head to the Walker home to break the bad news. But that’s only the start of trouble in Timber Creek, because soon another girl goes missing—and this time it’s one of Cole’s daughters.

Knowing that each hour a child remains missing lessens the probability of finding her alive, Mattie and Robo lead the hunt while Cole and community volunteers join in to search everything—to no avail. It seems that someone has snatched all trace of the Walker girl from their midst, including her scent. Grasping at straws, Mattie and Robo follow a phoned-in tip into the dense forest, where they hope to find a trace of the girl and rescue her alive. But when Robo does catch her scent, it leads them to information that challenges everything they thought they knew about the case.

Mattie and Robo must rush to hunt down the kidnapper before they’re too late in Hunting Hour, the heart-pounding third installment in Margaret Mizushima’s exhilarating Timber Creek K-9 mysteries.

Colorado Book Award finalist for Best Mystery
2018 Silver Falchion Award Finalist
TopShelf Indie Award Nominee

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683312789
Publisher:	CROOKED LANE BOOKS
Publication date:	08/08/2017
Series:	Timber Creek K-9 Series , #3
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	37,410
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Margaret Mizushima is the author of the Timber Creek K-9 mysteries, which includes Killing Trail (Crooked Lane Books, 2015) nominated for an RT Reviewer’s Choice award for best first mystery, Stalking Ground (Crooked Lane Books, 2016) a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards mystery category, and Hunting Hour (Crooked Lane Books, 2017). She has a background in speech pathology and practiced in an acute care hospital before establishing her own rehabilitation agency. Currently, she balances writing with assisting her husband with their veterinary clinic and Angus cattle herd. She enjoys reading and hiking, and she lives on a small ranch in Colorado where she and her husband raised two daughters and a multitude of animals. She can be found on Facebook/Author Margaret Mizushima, on Twitter @margmizu, and on her website at www.margaretmizushima.com.

Editorial Reviews

06/05/2017
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. Agent: Terrie Wolf, AKA Literary Management. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Hunting Hour:
“Suspenseful [and] meticulously detailed...[A] rewarding, small-town police procedural.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Fans who miss Virginia Lanier’s ’Bloodhound’ series, and readers who relish strong female characters and procedurals with a strong sense of place will want to get better acquainted with Mattie and Robo."
—Library Journal

“After exploring her heroine’s history in Stalking Ground (2016), Mizushima presents a fresh mystery in which the heroine’s motivations may reveal even more about her background.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"Mizushima’s best mystery yet! ...Hunting Hour is suspenseful and engaging, keeping readers on edge the entire way through this third Timber Creek K-9 Mystery."
—RT Book Reviews Top Pick

"A compelling story peopled with full-dimensional characters about whom you grow to care deeply."
—Deadly Pleasures

From the Publisher

08/01/2017
In her third outing (after Staking Ground and Killing Trail), a depressed Mattie Cobb still struggles with issues from her past and a previous case. She and Robo, her K-9 coworker, are still a tightly bonded team, but Mattie has withdrawn from her police colleagues and local vet Cole Walker and his daughters. When a teenage girl is reported missing, Mattie and Robo are on the case then find the girl's body near the high school. Then one of Cole's daughters is kidnapped. The suspense ratchets up as the search for the missing girl accelerates. Mizushima excels at revealing Mattie's conflicted mind-set regarding Cole and his children and the disconnect she feels in her life. VERDICT Fans who miss Virginia Lanier's "Bloodhound" series, and readers who relish strong female characters and procedurals with a strong sense of place will want to get better acquainted with Mattie and Robo.—ACT

Library Journal

2017-06-06
A missing girl who turns up dead ignites the protective instincts, if not the soundest investigating instincts, of a cop with a K-9 partner.When an emergency call from the Timber Creek police force interrupts Deputy Mattie Cobb during a therapy session, she's all too happy to take the call and get to work. Being on the job with her police dog, Robo, gives Mattie a welcome sense of calm that makes her feel better about her past. Once she hears the details of the case, though, she's more unsettled than ever. Mattie and Chief Deputy Ken Brody are called to investigate the disappearance of Candace Banks, a junior high school student who didn't return home at the end of the day. Though Robo is instrumental in finding Candace, the team is too late, for whoever apparently abducted her has killed her. Shocked and horrified, Mattie finds herself talking things over with her friend town vet Cole Walker. Even though Mattie's taken a step back from her friendship with Cole and his two young daughters, Sophie and Angela, she immediately worries how it will feel for him to hear about the murder of a girl his daughters' age. Determined to find a suspect, she zeroes in on Gus Tilley, a bachelor from outside town who's been showing up at Cole's practice with alarming frequency. Does Gus' anxious behavior hide a guilty conscience? Mattie feels certain she can find a connection between Gus and Candace's murder, whether or not her colleagues agree. She becomes even more determined when Sophie goes missing. After exploring her heroine's history in Stalking Ground (2016), Mizushima presents a fresh mystery in which the heroine's motivations may reveal even more about her background.

Kirkus Reviews