Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Amazon
ISBN-10: B016V4GQGA
Type: Fiction
Pages: 291
Copyright: October 18, 2015
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
A high-powered rifle shot rings out in California’s early morning stillness launching Roger and Suzanne into another suspenseful mystery thriller. In a complex whodunit set against a backdrop of pointing dogs and canine hunt tests, Roger has to solve a murder case with no clues, no suspects, and no apparent motive. There’s lots of action as the dogs hunt birds and the humans hunt for a cold-blooded killer.
The long-awaited seventh novel in the popular Roger and Suzanne mystery series is the second novel starring prize-winning dog Juliet as a featured character. Suzanne, with a lot of help from Bruce, enters Juliet and her puppy Romeo in several local hunt tests. Naturally, Suzanne finds a dead body at the hunt test venue her first time handling Romeo. Roger, recruited at the scene by an old friend from the local Sheriff’s Department, is asked to help in the murder investigation. It looks like an impossible case to solve. Roger launches a complex, multifaceted investigation, picks up a couple of paying clients and a new detective for his agency, and gets to learns all about canine hunt tests. There’s a lot of suspense as we join the dogs and the detectives hunting their prey while also peeking into the Southern California social scene and lifestyle. A must for German shorthaired pointer and other hunting dog owners, breeders, and handlers, dog lovers in general, and mystery fans. All of the books in this series can be read as standalone entries or in series order. FREE from Kindle Unlimited.
Excerpt
Bruce and I stood off to one side with my now almost two-year-old son Robert behind the starting line. We were watching Romeo run while rooting for Suzanne to keep him steered in the proper direction and not to become distracted by all that was going on around him. This was his first time out in a real Junior Hunter test so Bruce wasn’t sure what he’d do in front of a crowd with real birds to be hunted.
Romie was casting into the wind, getting closer and closer to the ditch. Bruce commented wryly, “I think Romie’s about to point his first bird in hunt test competition. Too bad it’s in a ditch in the backfield!”
“Will the judge disqualify him if that happens?” I asked.
“No, he’ll expect Suzanne to go over and flush the bird, then bring Romie back into the bird field for the rest of his run. As long as she gets him back in time, it’s your classic ‘no blood, no foul’ situation.”
The first part of Bruce’s prediction came true just as he finished explaining what was going on to me. Romeo locked onto a hard and very stylish point of what we all assumed was a bird in the ditch. This wasn’t unusual as birds flew out of the bird field after flushing. A nearby ditch with plenty of cover and some water in it would be an attractive place to land and hide out during the hunt test, at least from a chukar’s point of view.
Suzanne walked over to Romeo as fast as she could, sighted along his body from his tail, pointing straight back, to the nose, looked further out along the imaginary line, and saw what Romeo was pointing toward. “Oh crap,” she thought, “it’s happening all over again!”
She stepped back and signaled us to come over to where she and Romeo were standing. We were running over toward her and the dog as fast as we could. Out of the corner of my eye I could see one of the judges cantering his horse from the bird field toward Suzanne and Romeo. We got there first. I looked over to where Romeo and Suzanne were pointing. There was a dead body lying there, its head tilted at an angle so unnatural I didn’t have to get any closer to know the victim was dead. I could see it was a man, but the heavy weeds and brush obscured most of the rest of the body.
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