Dead Blow (Horseshoer Mystery Series #2)

by Lisa Preston

Overview

The Terrific Second Book in the New Horseshoer Mystery Series, Featuring the Incorrigible Female Horse Shoer Rainy Dale

A dead blow hammer leaves little to no mark on the surface it strikes. It’s not a shoer’s tool, but horseshoer Rainy Dale knows them and knows there are more questions than answers about how her new client became a widow. The old woman says there was hardly a bruise on her dead husband. Why was he driving his tractor so dangerously near the killer bull? How long did it take him to die after the machine rolled and pinned him? The whole town seems aware of the dead man’s wandering eye. Did the widow know? It all happened just before Rainy came to town, about the time that her fiancé, Guy, volunteered with his buddy to help search for a young woman who went missing from Cowdry, Oregon. Rainy is supposed to be making wedding plans and friends, but she can’t help being drawn into the town’s old intrigues.

Once again, Rainy will have to dig deep and use all the tools in her box to both defend herself and the people she's just learning to love. 
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510749122
Publisher:	Arcade Crimewise
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Series:	Horseshoer Mystery Series , #2
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	992 KB
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Lisa Preston turned to writing after careers as a fire department paramedic and a city police officer. She is the author of the highly acclaimed, bestselling novels Orchids and Stone and TheMeasure of the Moon. She is also the author of several nonfiction books and articles on the care and training of dogs and horses. Away from her desk, she spends hours on backcountry trails as a runner and rider, sometimes combining her two outdoor pursuits via the obscure sport of Ride and Tie. She lives with her husband, their Malinois, and two Akhal-Tekes on Washington State’s vast Olympic Peninsula.
 
Lisa Preston turned to writing after careers as a fire department paramedic and a city police officer. She is the author of the highly acclaimed, best-selling novels, Orchids and Stone and Measure of the Moon and the Horseshoer Mystery Series. She is also the author of several non-fiction books and articles on the care and training of dogs and horses. Away from her desk, she spends hours on backcountry trails as a runner and rider, sometimes combining her two outdoor pursuits via the obscure sport of Ride and Tie. She lives with her husband, their Malinois, and two Akhal Tekes on Washington State's vast Olympic Peninsula. lisapreston.com

Editorial Reviews

10/07/2019

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

Library Journal

09/09/2019

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. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Advance praise for Dead Blow:
“A tough yet vulnerable farrier tracks a killer, makes new friends, and commits to marriage. . . .A gritty tale with a complex mystery and an unusual heroine.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Preston’s enjoyable sequel to 2018’s The Clincher. . . . Rainy, a strong, down-home, likable sleuth, has just the right amount of attitude to give her some gumption. . . . Preston delivers a steady ride right up to the satisfying ending. Hopefully, Rainy will be back soon.”—Publishers Weekly

“A winning follow-up to the series opener, The Clincher (2018), and a must for horse lovers.” —Booklist

“Rainy Dale is a lively, appealing one-of-a-kind. Dead Blow is great fun to read, partly because of the clever, quirky, twisty plot, but even more so because of the frequent peeks into Rainy’s clever, quirky, twisty mind.  May the series long continue.” —Aaron Elkins, Edgar Award–winning author of the Gideon Oliver mystery series

“Lisa Preston puts her own sharp edge on this fast-moving contemporary western thriller. Her heroine, young Rainy Dale, is a female horseshoer, as strong and passionate of mind as she is strong of back. When accidents in her central Oregon paradise don’t seem so accidental, and evil holds the whip hand as the bodies start piling up, Rainy proves that cold steel and hot iron are for deadlier deeds than shoeing horses.”—Bart Paul, author of See that My Grave is Kept Clean and others in the Tommy Smith High Country Noir series

Praise for The Clincher:
“Preston’s background as a police officer, horse owner, and author of several nonfiction works about horses helps make the actions of her characters authentic and very believable. VERDICT Fans of light mystery with tough female protagonists and a little romance thrown in will want this book. For those who enjoy both mysteries and horses, it’s a must.”
—Library Journal (Patsy Gray)

“...this exuberantly quirky series opener...will leave readers breathless and eagerly awaiting Rainy’s next adventure.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A rousing novel. The mystery leaves plenty of open questions for the tough but needy heroine while immersing the reader in all things equine.” —Kirkus Book Reviews

“Fast-paced, absorbing and fun to boot,The Clincher grabs your attention from the first paragraph and never loosens its grip. Rainy Dale—horseshoer with sass—is one of the freshest and most original sleuths to come along in mystery fiction. May she live on and on!” —Margaret Coel, NYT bestselling author of Winter's Child

“Rainy Dale—an engaging character with a unique voice who can shoe horses like nobody’s business!” —J.A. Jance, NYT best-selling author ofClawback

“Lisa Preston’s The Clincher hits like a nailing hammer and won’t let go—her horseshoeing sleuth, Rainy Dale, is a new and distinctive voice in crime fiction.” —Craig Johnson, NYT bestselling author of the Longmire series

“The Clincher runs at full gallop from first page to last with sharp-eyed Rainy Dale leading the charge. Lisa Preston's writing is so vivid you'll think you're sitting in the saddle and you'll finish knowing you need to see Rainy Dale ride again.” —Mark Stevens, Rocky Mt. Fiction Writers “Writer of the Year” and author of Lake of Fire

“The Clincher by Lisa Preston is the perfect contemporary western.” —Reavis Wortham, author of the Sonny Hawke and Red River series

“A great plot and compelling cast of characters round out The Clincher. This one is a winner.”  —James W. Ziskin, award winning author of the Ellie Stone mysteries 

“Be forewarned that the last forty pages will have you hanging onto your saddle horn and you won’t be able to stop until the ride is over.  Personally, I can’t wait to see what Rainy Dale does next.”  —Leigh Hearon, author of the Carson Stables Mystery series

“A terrific launch of what's to be a series of...contemporary western thrillers...Craig Johnson, creator of Walt Longmire and so a master of this form, is one of several people who already like this book a lot...you'll be rattled and moved and deeply satisfied before you're done, too, and hungry for more of this smart, tough, and resourceful person.” —Shawangunki Journal

“The novel boasts a fast-paced plot, sympathetic characters who come alive and writing that is excellent...” —Carol Crigger, Western Writers of America

From the Publisher

2019-09-02
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.

Kirkus Reviews