KAREN’S KILLER BOOK BENCH: Welcome to Karen’s Killer Book Bench, where readers can discover talented new authors and take a peek inside their wonderful books. This is not an age-filtered site, so all book peeks are PG-13 or better. Come back and visit often. Happy reading!
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DYNG CRY
A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery
BY MARGARET MIZUSHIMA
BLURB
A killer lurks in Colorado’s snowy high country in Dying Cry, the tenth thrilling installment of award-winning author Margaret Mizushima’s Timber Creek K-9 mystery series.
Newlyweds Mattie and Cole Walker are teaching Cole’s daughters how to snowshoe in a remote canyon when a shattering scream pierces the air. They know that somewhere ahead, someone has been injured or worse. Cole takes the girls while Mattie and Robo go deeper into the canyon to search for the source of the scream.
From a distance, Mattie and Robo see a shadowy figure at the base of a cliff, but a rockslide buries the person under layers of stone and shale before they can provide help. Desperate to uncover the individual in case they’re still alive under the rock, their efforts are in vain. The victim is already dead. When they investigate the canyon rim from which the person fell, they discover evidence that indicates the fall was no accident. To make matters worse, the victim was one of Cole’s friends.
The Timber Creek County investigative team springs into action, uncovering a trail of greed that leads to a killer who threatens Mattie’s cherished new family and tests her with the most difficult task she’s faced in her duty as a K-9 handler.
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DYNG CRY
A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery
BY MARGARET MIZUSHIMA
Excerpt
Sunday, mid-February
It was a perfect day for a family outing—until a piercing scream split the air. Leading their small party, Deputy Mattie Walker stopped in her tracks, her crampons holding steady, ending the soft thump-crunch of her snowshoes on the frigid snow. She held up her hand, signaling for quiet so she could listen. The sudden cry echoed between the canyon walls, dying slowly as it faded into the distance.
Her breath formed a cloud that hung in the cold air at her face. She peered ahead, hoping to see anything that might point to the scream’s origin. Rock walls rose to a height of at least three hundred feet on either side of the narrow canyon, an ice-covered stream off to the left. Snow, packed beneath fresh powder, choked the trail they were traveling as it wound slightly uphill between ponderosa pine interspersed with short, fragrant cedar.
Nothing. The air was now still, and the sides of the canyon displayed nothing but rock, ice, and snow. Farther down, a flock of birds rose into the air and circled above the canyon wall, a sign that they’d been disturbed.
She turned to seek out the worried eyes of her husband Cole. Looking over the heads of her two stepdaughters—Sophie in her bright red stocking cap and Angela in one of fuzzy blue—Mattie met Cole’s gaze. “Cougar?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t either.”
Nine-year-old Sophie piped up, her brown eyes wide. “You mean it could be a mountain lion?”
“No, I meant what I said, Sophie,” Cole said. “I don’t think it’s a mountain lion.”
“Whew, that’s a relief.” She lifted her short pole, gripped tight within the red mitten on her right hand, and pointed uphill. Powdery snow from the basket on its end drifted on the breeze blowing from uphill. “It came from up there.”
Mattie wasn’t feeling any of Sophie’s relief. If the scream hadn’t come from a cougar, it meant it was most likely that of a human. A glance at the worry lines on Angie’s forehead above her blue eyes told Mattie that their sixteen-year-old had figured out what it meant as well.
Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, a large male German shepherd who weighed in at a hundred pounds, raced down the path toward her, his black lips open, showing his white teeth and pink tongue. Their Doberman pinscher, Bruno, and Bernese mountain dog, Belle, followed closely behind him. Belle’s slight limp was evident as she charged through the snow. It felt good to have Robo and Bruno there for protection in case they needed it. Belle was a big lover, but she would also come to their rescue if necessary.
“What are you thinking?” Cole asked.
Mattie was thinking that someone had fallen off one of the cliffs up ahead, and the scream’s sudden end meant the person had crashed onto the canyon floor. She glanced at the kids, letting Cole know she needed to couch her thoughts in softer terms. “I wonder if someone fell from up above, but I can’t see anything from here. I need to go on up and see if someone needs help.”
Or if someone is dead. She didn’t want to voice her final thought.
“We’ll go with you.”
Again, she swept the tops of the girls’ heads with her gaze. “I need to hurry and shouldn’t take time for small steps. Besides, I’m not sure what I’ll find.” She paused, sending Cole a message with her eyes that it could be bad and she didn’t want the kids exposed to anything traumatic that could haunt them for, well . . . for the rest of their lives.
In her work as a sheriff’s deputy and from her childhood experiences, she knew what it was like to see and hear things that were too ugly for a person to register without lasting pain. She didn’t want her children to ever have to bear that burden. “I’ll take Robo and see if I can find something. Take the girls and the other dogs down to the end of the canyon until you get a cell phone signal. Try to reach Brandon and have him send help, in case we find someone who’s been injured,” she said, referring to the manager at the resort where they were staying.
Cole frowned. “I don’t want to split up.”
She understood. “I don’t want to either, but in this case we’ve got to.”
“I could take Sophie back to the lodge and get help,” Angie said, the creases between her eyebrows saying something entirely different.
Cole spoke first, his words voicing exactly what Mattie was thinking. “No, you shouldn’t go alone out here. It’s too easy to take a wrong trail and get lost. Mattie’s right, you kids come with me and we’ll get help.”
About Author Margaret Mizushima…
Margaret Mizushima writes the internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She served as a past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She is the recipient of a Colorado Authors League Award, a Benjamin Franklin Book Award, a CIBA CLUE Award, and two Willa Literary Awards by Women Writing the West. Her books have been finalists for a SPUR Award by Western Writers of America, a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, and the Colorado Book Award. She and her husband recently moved from Colorado, where they raised two daughters and a multitude of animals, to a home in the Pacific Northwest.
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Links to Margaret’s websites, blogs, books, #ad, etc.:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/4q2Yb5P
Facebook/AuthorMargaretMizushima, X @margmizu, Instagram @margmizu, and her website www.margaretmizushima.com.
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Special Giveaway: Margaret will gift one print copy (U.S. only) of DYING CRY to one lucky reader who comments on her Karen’s Killer Book Bench blog. Good luck!
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Thanks, Margaret, for sharing your book with us!
Don’t miss the chance to read this book!
I had the pleasure and honor of reading an ARC of DYING CRY! It’s so good! 🙂 I think I say this with each of your new books, Margaret, but this one is my favorite. So many great twists! 🙂 And of course–Robo! 🙂
Thank you so much for your help with the research and the launch for this book, Kathleen. I’m so glad you enjoyed it, just as I enjoyed your latest, Colorado K-9 Rescue. Happy book birthday to you too! And very best wishes!
Excerpt, title, book cover is excellent and author is new to me so really excited about reading a print copy of this book so I can review it very attention grabbing sure makes me feel like buying the book look forward to reading the print copy of this book because it sure looks like an excellent read
Thanks so much for your interest, Crystal! I really hope you enjoy Dying Cry. It stands alone so you can jump into the series right now to catch Robo’s latest adventure. Thanks for joining us on Karen’s Book Bench!
The story sounds intriguing and exciting. Thank you for sharing with us.
Thanks for sharing an excerpt of your book. It sounds really good. One I hope to read.
Eileen is my middle name! Thank you for your interest, Eileen. I hope you enjoy Robo, Mattie, and Cole’s latest adventure!
One morning , your book sounds and looks very intriguing! Your excerpt has got me hooked! Thank you so much for sharing about your book “Dying Cry” with us, I am definitely adding it to my TBR. Have a great day and a great rest of the week.
Much appreciated, Alicia! Just as we’re heading into fall season, this chilling book set in the wintertime in Colorado comes out. Grab a warm beverage to read! LOL Thank you for joining us here and for your interest in Dying Cry.
Welcome back to Karen’s Killer Book Bench, Margaret. I’m hooked! It’s going on my TBR list right now. I love your books. Can’t wait to read it. Thanks for sharing your book with us today!
Karen, thank you so much for hosting this excerpt of Dying Cry on your Book Bench! I hope you enjoy this new episode in the series. Love and hugs, Margaret
Phenomenal excerpt!! Love Margaret’s Timber Creek mysteries!!
Thank you very much, Marie! I really appreciate your comment and am grateful you joined us here today. Wishing you all the best!