Dead Blow: a Horseshoer Mystery

October 7, 2019

Horseshoer Rainy Dale may be a little lacking in social skills, but she is kind and empathetic. She's supposed to be planning her wedding and making new friends, but she and boyfriend Guy quickly get involved in two incidents that have burdened the town of Cowdry, OR: the death of farmer Cameron Chevigny, whose tractor fatally rolled over on him, and the disappearance of a young woman named Arielle Blake. How did an old hand at driving tractors end up killed in such a way? When Rainy is asked to shoe the widow's horses, and Guy volunteers to search for Arielle, a ton of questions emerge: Was the tractor death an accident? Is Arielle's disappearance somehow tied to the incident? Rainy uses her singular skills as a shoer to solve these mysteries and create new friendships in the process.

VERDICT Preston's second "Horseshoer" mystery (after The Clincher) is another refreshing change from grim mysteries about serial killers and political plots. Readers of contemporary Westerns, horse fiction, and light mysteries will like this one.--Patsy Gray, formerly with Huntsville P.L., AL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2019
Horseshoer Rainy Dale is advised to be careful when she goes to work on the Buckeye, a big ranch whose owner, Cameron Chevigny, recently died in a tractor accident. His widow, Donna, gains Rainy's respect for trying to keep the family business going, but Rainy is taken aback when Donna's dog brings her a woman's glove with a hand still in it. The hand is found to belong to a missing woman who was one of Cameron's several paramours, raising the issues of how she died and whether his death was really an accident. And then there's Dragoon, the Buckeye's dangerous bull who tries to kill horses. An unlikely sleuth, Rainy is more comfortable with animals than with people, except for her fianc�, Guy, the chef who feeds her spinach starters when she longs for a burger. Still the "New Girl" after a year and a half in Cowdry, Oregon, Rainy wants a friend, and she finds one in the woman she asks to be her maid of honor. A winning follow-up to the series opener, The Clincher (2018), and a must for horse lovers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

September 9, 2019
In Preston’s enjoyable sequel to 2018’s The Clincher, Rainy Dale, the intrepid horseshoer of Cowdry, Ore., takes on a new client, rancher Donna Chevigny, whose husband, Cameron, died the previous year in a tractor accident. Rainy welcomes the job as a chance to help someone hard-pressed to manage a cattle ranch all on her own. Everything changes, though, when Donna’s dog finds a glove with a human hand in it. The hand belongs to Arielle Blake, a young woman who went missing about the same time Cameron died. Are the two deaths related? Was Donna involved with either death? What about Arielle’s fiancé? Rainy becomes mired in clues, suspects, and questions, with no answers in sight. Rainy, a strong, down-home, likable sleuth, has just the right amount of attitude to give her some gumption. The horseshoeing jargon and details of the tools of the trade may be more than some readers care to know, but Preston delivers a steady ride right up to the satisfying ending. Hopefully, Rainy will be back soon. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media Group.

September 15, 2019
A tough yet vulnerable farrier tracks a killer, makes new friends, and commits to marriage. Rainy Dale has settled into Cowdry, the small Oregon town she calls home. She's living with her boyfriend, Guy, a chef whose interest in food is as intense as her own interest in horses. Rainy's newest customer, Donna Chevigny, a widow whose husband, Cameron, died under suspicious circumstances, wants Rainy to shoe some horses she plans to sell. The area where the horses are kept, which is especially difficult to reach because Donna's neighbor refuses to let her cross his property, is the site of Cameron's death in a tractor rollover and home of a dangerous killer rodeo bull Cameron and a friend had hoped to use to start a stock business. Rainy offers to use her dog, Charley, to help bring in some cattle from the same area and remove the tractor's flat tire for repair. At the corral and shed where they work, Rainy finds a discarded horseshoe which her practiced eye tells her is not from a ranch horse, and Donna's dog makes an even more disturbing discovery: a glove containing a human hand. At length the hand is identified as belonging to Arielle Blake, the former girlfriend of Donna's neighbor, whose remains are soon located in a shallow grave. Arielle's affair with Cameron, one of several he was carrying on, makes Donna a likely suspect in both deaths. Overcoming her initial suspicions, Rainy comes to admire Donna. As she goes about her business, she ponders the mystery and picks up clues. All the while, Melinda Kellan, an ambitious police clerk with whom Rainy's developed a love/hate relationship (The Clincher, 2018), hopes to use Rainy's knowledge to help solve the murders and fulfill her dream of becoming a police officer. A gritty tale with a complex mystery and an unusual heroine.

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