I received this book at the December meeting of Mystery Readers with the assignment to report on it during the February meeting. It’s the first book I’ve read that featured a police service dog, and I have to say I enjoyed learning about how the dog was handled, and how he did his job.
Killing Trail features Mattie Cob, a
deputy sheriff in Timber Creek, Colorado. Having a K-9 unit is a first for
Timber Creek, and so she and the German Sheppard, Robo, are the source of a
good deal of speculation by the towns people and envy by a few of her
colleagues. Fresh from a twelve week training course at the K-9 Academy, they
are called out to where the body of a girl has been discovered along with her
injured dog. What follows is a police procedural with a lot of interviewing
people who knew the victim and others who might have something to hide. Throw
in a handsome veterinarian, and you have a little romance too. I’d say it’s a
better than average first book, and I expect other books in the series will be
even better.
