Book Review: Hunting Hour

Hunting Hour

by: Margaret Mizushima

Publication Date: August 8, 2017
Finished on: October 21, 2017
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

I received a free copy of Hunting Hour from Cooked Lane books in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions expressed below are my own.

Synopsis:
Hunting Hour is book 3 in the Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series.  I was assured by the publisher that it could be read as a standalone and I'm  happy to report back that this is true.  I could guess at the plots of the previous novels from the backstory provided in this novel.  Hunting Hour is told primarily from Deputy Mattie Cobb's perspective.  For you dog lovers, she has a K-9 partner, Robo, who helps follow scents to assist with her cases.  At the start of the novel, a junior high student is reported missing and then her body is found near the high school.  While investigating the homicide, Mattie's good friend's young daughter also goes missing.  There is no time to lose while the Timber Creek police department try to find Cole's daughter as well as investigate the murder of the other teen.  Are they looking for the same suspect?  Or are these totally unrelated?

My review:
I will admit that I hadn't heard about Hunting Hour until I was contacted by the publisher and asked if I was interested in reviewing it.  I have a huge TBR and I wasn't sure if I wanted to add to it, but upon checking it out on Goodreads, I saw that all three books in the series have over 4 stars, so I figured it was definitely worth my time.

I'm so glad Crooked Lane Books sent this my way, as I'm not sure if its something I would have picked for myself.  I'm not a huge dog person (cats forever!) and I'm not really drawn to books that feature animals.  Thankfully, that is not what this book is all about.  Yes, it features a woman and her K-9 partner, but its really about the investigation of a missing child and character analysis to help determine who would be the kidnapper.  I'm definitely interested in checking out the other books in this series!

One thing that I loved about Hunting Hour was the large cast of suspects.  I was frequently guessing different people for the murder and the kidnapping.  The high school jocks?  The creepy customer?  The young feed store employee?  The father?  The recently moved in pedophile?  There are so many suspects that makes for fun guessing on who is actually guilty.

It was initially disconcerting to me how Mattie suspects a character who is obviously written with mental illness.  It made me very uncomfortable reading how she dealt with him initially.  I was happy to see that the author continued to explore this complex issue and provided information about mental illness throughout the book.  I think less "severe" mental illnesses need to be portrayed and discussed in order to prevent vilifying these populations.

Overall, I rate this 4/5 stars.  If you are a fan of mysteries, then I'd definitely recommend this one for you.  This isn't graphic or creepy, but it definitely packs some suspense and keeps you interested in reading more.