Longtime Wellington Resident Pens New Mystery

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Award-winning novelist Margaret Mizushima will celebrate the release of Standing Dead, the latest installment of the critically-acclaimed Timber Creek K-9 Series, in March.  Standing Dead (Crooked Lane) will be available, where fine books are sold on March 7, 2023.

About Standing Dead:  Deputy Mattie Cobb and her sister, Julia, travel to Mexico to visit their mother, but when they arrive, they discover that she and her husband have vanished without a trace. Back in Timber Creek, Mattie finds a chilling note on her front door telling her to look for “him” among the standing dead up in the high country.

The sheriff’s department springs into action and sends a team to the mountains, where Mattie’s K-9 partner, Robo, makes a grisly discovery—a body tied to a dead pine tree. Mattie is shocked when she realizes she knows the dead man. And then another note arrives, warning that Mattie’s mother is in desperate straits. In a last-ditch gambit, Mattie must go deep undercover into a killer’s lair to save her mother—or die trying.

Standing Dead has earned high advance praise, including:

Standing Dead is a roller coaster of tension from the first page—I literally couldn’t put it down. Mizushima gives us wonderfully drawn characters along with a cracking good plot and realistic law enforcement details. A highlight for me is the protagonist’s relationship with Robo, her K-9 partner. Highly recommended.”
—Deborah Crombie, New York Times bestselling author of A Killing Of Innocents

“Instantly immersive, constantly surprising, and totally compelling. The talented Margaret Mizushima has an unfailing sense of place, a keen eye for character, and a true gift for storytelling. Standing Dead is at once chilling and heartbreaking, as Mizushima gives her iconic characters (both with two legs and four) a shocking secret—and then a daunting task with the highest of stakes. Such a terrific mystery!”
—Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of Her Perfect Life

“Deputy Mattie Wray has changed her name, but she’s the same dedicated, gutsy officer who loves her family, her friends, her job, and her K-9 partner Robo with all her heart.”
—Pamela Beason, award-winning author of the Sam Westin Wilderness Mysteries

“A thrilling mystery with heart that will leave you wanting more.”
—Amy Rivers, award-winning author of Complicit and All the Broken People

“It is a rare pleasure to discover a book in which the author’s skill with her craft is so fluently meshed with her deep knowledge of the story’s subject and terrain. Margaret Mizushima has created exactly that kind of mystery novel with Standing Dead. . . Thought-provoking and timely. Highly Recommended.”
—Baron R. Birtcher, award-winning author of Fistful Of Rain

Published by New York-based Crooked Lane Books, Standing Dead will be available in hardcover (ISBN:  978-1639102440, 288 pages, $28.99) and eBook ($13.99) editions on March 7, 2023.  

Margaret Mizushima writes the award-winning and internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She served as past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected 2019 Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. Active in the writing community, she also belongs to Sisters in Crime, Women Writing the West and Northern Colorado Writers. She and her husband recently moved from Colorado to a home in the Pacific Northwest. Find her on Facebook/AuthorMargaretMizushima, Twitter @margmizu, Instagram @margmizu, and her website www.margaretmizushima.com.

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