What a week this has been! It all started when my sister, Julia, and I drove to Mexico to visit our mother. The trip was stressful since the last time I’d been there she’d told me never to return. She was still afraid of the men who’d killed my father decades earlier.

But to my knowledge, Mom was the only eyewitness to his murder, and I wanted to see if she would speak to a new cold case detective in San Diego about it. When Julia and I arrived at her house though, our mother and stepfather had disappeared without a trace. Questioning friends and his family got us nowhere.

I flew back to Colorado, landing in Denver and then driving for four hours to Timber Creek. Despite an exhausting and disappointing trip, I loved reuniting with my K-9 partner Robo, my fiancé Cole, and his two daughters before I went home for much needed sleep.

At home, I found darkness on my front porch instead of the warm glow of security lights. And there was a note pinned to my screen door. Robo cleared the house quickly—at least it hadn’t been broken into and no bad guys were present. I gloved up and carried the note to the kitchen before removing it from the envelope.

The note said that I would find “him” among the standing dead near a campground located in the wilderness area northwest of town. It’s the middle of November and well below freezing up in the high country. Even though I have no idea who “him” is, I know that we have to go look for this person. And if anyone can find him in the dark of night, it would be Robo.

I call my boss, the Timber Creek County Sheriff, and we prepare for the hunt. This is going to be a long night.

Standing Dead, A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery Book #8
Genre: Traditional
Release: March 2023
Format: Print, Digital, and Audio
Purchase Link

From critically acclaimed, master thriller author Margaret Mizushima, comes the eighth installment of the award-winning Timber Creek K-9 mysteries.

Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother, but when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country.

The sheriff’s department springs into action and sends a team to the mountains, where Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, makes a grisly discovery—a body tied to a dead pine tree. Mattie is shocked when she realizes she knows the dead man. And then another note arrives, warning that Mattie’s mother is in desperate straits. In a last-ditch gambit, Mattie must go deep undercover into a killer’s lair to save her mother—or die trying.

About the author
Margaret Mizushima writes the award winning and internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She serves as past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected 2019 Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. 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.

Find her on Facebook at AuthorMargaretMizushima, Twitter @margmizu, Instagram @margmizu, and her website at margaretmizushima.com.

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