Standing Dead (A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery)

Welcome to the eighth Timber Creek mystery. Unlike many mystery series, this one has wholesome, kind characters and a super special K-9 officer. Like the other books in this series, the bad guys are truly despicable. The main character, Deputy Sheriff Matti Cobb, and her sister, Julia, team up to search for their mother after traveling to Mexico only to learn that she and her husband are missing. Matti and Julia’s father, a border patrol agent, was murdered during the girls’ early childhood, prompting them to consider past villains.
< br>Author Margaret Mizushima takes readers on an informative trip as Matti and Julia travel between Northern Mexico and the mountains of Colorado. The atmosphere, geography, and vegetation become characters as well.

Readers experience the anxiety and physical effort Maddi deals with racing the clock to locate her mother. Cryptic clues she finds lead her to a murder victim. Of course, Robo, her canine officer partner, is the one who does the groundwork. Other jurisdictions participate as more clues surface (Sheriff’s Auxiliary and Federal Park Rangers). Matti’s almost-finance, Cole Walker, DMV, is an Auxiliary member who has more at stake.

A subtitle might be Greed and Longtime Grudges.