Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizushima

Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizushima
A Timber Creek K9 mystery
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rated: 4 stars
Reviewed by Snapdragon

Deputy Mattie Wray, formerly Mattie Cobb, is summoned to Washington’s Olympic peninsula for an urgent search and rescue mission to find a celebrity’s missing child. With only a week left before her wedding, Mattie is hesitant to leave Timber Creek, but her K-9 partner Robo’s tracking skills are needed.

Dense forest, chilling rain, and unfriendly locals hamper their efforts, and soon Mattie suspects something more sinister than a lost child is at play. When one of the SAR dogs becomes ill, her fiancé, Cole Walker, suspects poison. Fearing for Mattie’s and Robo’s safety, Cole joins the search and rescue team as veterinary support.

Secrets that have lain hidden within the rugged terrain come to light, and when it is uncovered that the missing child was kidnapped, the search becomes a full-blown crime scene investigation, forcing Mattie, Robo, and Cole into a desperate search to find the missing child before it’s too late.

While very much a classic mystery in the sense that it offers a hunt-for-clues, and analysis of potential perpetrators, Gathering Mist takes readers down a very different trail.

Deputy Mattie Wray and her partner, search dog Robo, are called in to search for a missing child. From the start, Robo the dog is an important part of all the action. He’s a bit of a character, but he’s also a working professional. Mizushima really brings the dog’s training and abilities into sharp (and important) focus. The deputy joins others in the search, with dogs trained in different specialties. The training, and work of the dogs is interesting and incredibly detailed.

While the deputy is trying to sort out the characters of the child’s family members, she’s also attentive to what the dog is ‘telling’ her. This sudden call to duty has an impact on her personal life, and she struggles with worry about her wedding plans. Her fiancé’, a veterinarian, might not be 100% behind her sudden departure, but we get a sense of how their relationship works when she needs to call on his expertise, as well.

Interestingly, the missing child is actress Chrystal Winter’s son. The movie set, and the ‘Hollywood lifestyle’ provide an additional bit of background to the story. However, it is the day-to-day of search-and-rescue that really takes center stage, in Gathering Mist .

The resolution of the mystery is less intriguing than the effort to get there: those interested in how search dogs work, and how they are trained, will find themselves completely engrossed. Mystery fans and dog-lovers especially will enjoy this K-9 mystery.