Gathering Mist (A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery)
“[the series] consistently delivers intriguing cases, the human cost of them, and enough canine details to make dog lovers wag their tails.”
Here in their ninth outing together, Deputy Mattie Wray and her K-9 partner Robo, again chase bad guys through the mountainous West—this time leaving their home turf, Timber Creek, Colorado, for Washington State’s Olympic peninsula. While yes, there are mountains galore in Washington, the Peninsula’s soggy, opaque forests on those slopes couldn’t be more different than the dry, craggy terrain Mattie knows.
The story opens with Mattie and Robo doing air scent training. This supplements the ground scent tracking normally used, and provides not only what readers most want in this series—lots of page time with K-9 police procedure and handling—but also the launch point for this volume’s plot.
Just a week before Mattie’s wedding to Cole Walker, she and Robo are called to the peninsula for a search-and-rescue mission needing an extra-sharp dog and handler, especially a pair skilled in ground and air tracking. They are looking for a missing child, who possibly wandered off a movie set in the area and got lost. Soon it becomes evident that the child was abducted, and the case turns criminal. It also escalates into something more dangerous and sordid.
Along the way, readers learn a lot about the different uses of dog noses and breeds and training, and how they apply to police work. Several K-9 teams participate in the search, and when one of dogs gets poisoned, Cole—a veterinarian—is called in for his expertise.
The poisoning proves to be a vital clue in the mystery, at the same time allowing the couple to share the (mis)adventure. An important part of Mattie and Cole’s personal story is the strains her life in law enforcement put on family; Mattie and Cole had better master this if they expect to spend the rest of their lives together.
Relationships play an important role in this series. As the author says on her website: “The Timber Creek K-9 books are police procedurals with heart. Each adventure contains a combination of K-9 cop action, veterinary work, and family relationships as well as a murder case to investigate and solve. I also strive to provide an element of suspense within the structure of a traditional mystery.”
Gathering Mist does all of the above, with this story focusing more strongly on suspense and procedure than previous volumes, which build Mattie’s relationship backstory along with her career. It’s perhaps the most suspenseful of Mattie and Robo’s cases, building steadily in tension and complexity to climax. It also spends a lot of time in the dark and miserable forest, not doing the regional tourist bureaus any favors. Readers will get as chilled and discouraged as the characters tromping around in that environment, ofttimes at night.
While some praisers of the series place author Mizushima on par with author C. J. Box, that’s an apples-and-oranges comparison. Their stories might share a Western setting and crime genre, but Box’s works are a lot harsher and often more violent than Mizushima’s, and the male vs. female viewpoints don’t align. The Mattie K-9 series, although adventurous, wilderness-based, and demonstrating strength and courage, is nonetheless softer, leaning more toward the cozy end of the crime-novel spectrum. Nevertheless, the series in general and this book in particular concentrate on solving a mystery.
The author’s writing style remains clear but low-amplitude, curbing the need to breathlessly turn pages. But the story keeps pages turnable by being interesting and compelling from start to finish.
It’s best read after at least one of the previous books, if only for context. Several of the characters who have been involved in the first eight volumes appear only in conjunction with the wedding at the end, so new readers might not understand their importance. It’s worth reading the entire series, for it consistently delivers intriguing cases, the human cost of them, and enough canine details to make dog lovers wag their tails.