Not perfect but plenty for a few evening's entertainment

Tracking Game
by Margaret Mizushima

I'm reading these Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries out of order because the library only has the most recent ones in ebook versions. But they're opening back up this week and I'll be picking up #1 in the series today.

The dog is pretty great. So great that I wonder if Ms. Mizushima is stretching the bounds of known dog abilities a little bit in the things he can do. But dogs can do all sorts of things you'd never believe, so I'll let it slide. I do, however, think her detective is a little to fast to fire the "dog gun" if you know what I mean.  She should use her dog as a weapon of last resort. But that's my opinion and I'll allow you to disagree.

I'm greatly enjoying my string of superdog detective novels, but what I'd really like to find is one written by a man. Just to see how he'd approach it. Idle curiosity--the devil finds work....  Possibly what I'm looking for is great action, great human anguish and dog-rescues-person stories, and NO weepy self pity in a heroine. Or hero, whatever.

And the reason I bring this up is that there are two things keeping me from adoring this series and screaming for the next one--one, the detective Mattie Cobb gets a surprising amount of respect from the bad guys, more than I suspect any woman cop would; and two, she keeps diverting her thoughts into maudlin self pity and longing for the handsome veterinarian she's dating. it's like, "Oh, will I ever be able to let myself open up to him?" and "Would he ever get over my tragic past?" and "oh, sob sob misery...."  It really gets on my nerves. Thank heavens I'm reading this, not listening to the audiobook. That would be supremely annoying.

Best Driscoll to date, and last, I think

No Man's Land
by Sara Driscoll

Urban exploration. I'd never heard of it.
Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof-and-tunnel hacking) is the exploration of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the man-made environment.

In this challenging case, Meg and Hawk go along on a jaunt to check out an abandoned building, just for training purposes. But, of course, they find a recently deceased body. (Hawk is not a 'cadaver dog' but if someone has died recently enough, they still smell like a human being. And that's his forte--finding people)

And once again it's a race against time and death as Meg's team--sort of like the Avengers in their diversity and unique abilities--track down a killer who's not finished yet. And unlike the last book, Ms. Driscoll didn't take any annoying side trips into the killer's head. I loved this one even better than the last...and just be warned--

If you possess a healthy respect for heights, the scariest parts of this book may keep you awake at nights.

Travel and adventure and...darn

Northland
by Porter Fox

I'm not sure this lived up to the blurb on the cover, but at first, it was a very good travel narrative. A little natural history but not nearly as much as I desired. A good bit of human history mixed in with his day-to-day adventures.

Oddly, toward the end I felt unmotivated to continue. That might have been the result of his lengthy pause of the journey (not in time but in narrative) to write  in great detail (and with great feeling) about the current situation of the American Indians along the western border with Canada. Current events is fascinating and can make up a whole book by itself, but it wasn't what I signed up for and didn't flow well with what I'd been reading for the first half of the book.

Sometimes a writer has to follow his heart. I get that. But it disappointed.

Much better than the last K-9 mystery

Storm Rising
by Sara Driscoll

Maybe my attitude toward Sara Driscoll right now is "can do no wrong," and maybe readers who expect the c vvvcvffffffffffffffffffff

Argh. Cats.

...expect a mystery to have a certain, predictable sequence would think she clearly did much wrong here. But I liked it--it told a story and isn't that the point of books, after all?

If you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, I'll explain. A traditional mystery has a prologue, a crime, detection leading to a great reveal, and a little wrap-up at the end. If you like some action mixed in, then the great reveal might include the detective being attacked, abducted, or threatened in some scary way. But it's predictable, and you get your thrill in the reveal.

Just suffice it to say that she didn't do it that way. If you demand it, don't read this. But if you are starting to admire the characters and you love her writing, you'll absolutely love this like I did.

Everything going for it except the soppy personal relationships

Burning Ridge
by Margaret Mitzushima

She's not the action writer and her killer's motivation was awfully weak, and at the end, things didn't make much sense. Plus I got a little bored at the heroine's internal woes as she tried to let herself love and be loved.

And after saying those mean, judgemental things, I will happily read another in the series. After all, it had dogs!  And mountains and forests, search-and-rescue, forensics, and veterinary stuff. I wonder if descriptions of the drugs used by the perp were accurate? They were certainly fascinating.

So I'm in two minds about this--it has a lot to recommend it, but if you're looking for a series to fall in love with, probably not. But who knows? Maybe she's just getting started!

Excellent research, good audiobook

The Eating Instinct
by Virginia Sole-Smith

So It's our discomfort, and even disgust, with the "joy of eating" that frightens us. And that's because we've create a culture that tells us in a thousand ways from the time we first start solid foods, that this comfort cannot be trusted--that we cannot be trusted, to know what and how much to eat. We must outsource this judgement to experts who know better. First to our parents, then to teachers, then to food gurus and big brands, who sell us on diets, cleanses, food dogmas and lifestyle changes. We cede our knowledge, our  own personal relationship with food, to an entire world built on the premise that we don't know how to feed ourselves.

She goes on to discuss (in engaging detail) how her own daughter's instinctual ability to feed herself will be eroded over the years by society--by the friends who put their barbie dolls on diets, by well-meaning warnings from parents. And then interviews a lot of people with strange and even scary relationships with food that control their lives.

I admired her research and her writing and her courage in taking on such a "fraught" topic. The stories are heartbreaking, mostly, but bring up issues we need to understand. But I take issue with her notion that we have an "instinctual ability" to feed ourselves. If we ever had such a thing, it's been lost in the 600,000 years of our evolution. We're not rats and haven't been for a long, long time. And I, for one, am at least two generations removed from a basic knowledge of how to find, grow, and cook nutritious food. I don't know--society doesn't know--experts don't even know.

Be prepared for a string of K-9 capers

Before it's too late by Sara Driscoll

Reminder to self:
In this powerful K-9 crime thriller, FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her trusted search-and-rescue Labrador, Hawk, must race against the clock before a diabolical killer strikes again 

In my imaginary line between mystery and thriller, I'd put this squarely on the thriller side. Not in a bad, scary way, the way I did with Sara Paretsky's novels after my first two or three, and eventually gave up reading. But in a "wish she hadn't done that" sort of way. Her killer was never portrayed in first person, which I greatly appreciated. But his history left a little too little to the imagination.

Also the--oops. I can't say the other thing that bothered me. But nothing was too much over the line for me not to immediately seek out the next book in the series. Just like the first book in her series, this had great action; plenty of super dog heroics; very erudite mystery and believable deduction; and no coincidences. Also the cops, or rather FBI agents, aren't dopes. That part was kind of the best part. A lot of writers will create great stars like Meg Jennings (FBI Special Agent) and K-9 special operative (Hawk) and pit them against their own management team, but she doesn't. There's conflict, but it's believable.