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 … 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.
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I really enjoyed this contemporary mystery set in rural Oregon.
Not my kind of book. I am not a big fan of romance and girls problems. I prefer my own life to other girls
Another great author I’ve now discovered !! I’ll read her others for sure.
Enjoy a different lifestyle with this book.
A great shero.
I wish I knew more about horses after reading this book. Lots to figure out. Amateur sleuths just not my fav.
Spell-binding to the very end.
It’s a kick to learn about horses and their shoes.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Lisa Preston, and the publisher, Skyhorse. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this modern western novel of my own volition and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend Lisa Preston as an author to follow to friends and family. This is the second book of the series – I can’t wait to get the first (The Clincher) and more… Following the ARC is a peek into the third novel in this series, Forging Fire.
Dead Blow is a murder mystery – police procedural – modern western novel peopled with honest souls, soulless souls, good cops, bad cops, and some excellent dogs and horses. It doesn’t take long to sort the protagonists out, but the mystery remains hidden until the last possible moment. The story itself is full of hoots and giggles when appropriate, and most of the protagonists are exactly not what you expect.
Rainy Dale is a mid-twenties, new to the neighborhood loner – or she was when she blew into Cowdry, Oregon in her diesel pickup, ‘Old Blue’, along with her old dog Charley, her horse Red, and her horse-shoeing equipment. But perhaps loner gives the wrong impression – Rainy is alone, as in without family, without backup, without friends. All she is looking for is enough folks in need of a good, reliable horseshoer to keep her and her sidekicks in food and shelter. Cowdry is a nice little town, enough shops to keep you from having to hit a bigger city most of the time, a small but aging police force, a good vet, a decent restaurant and some fast food on offer. It fits the Dale crew very well, and before long there is Guy, and the attraction is mutual with weddings discussed for down the road. Co-habitation is nice for both of them. For Rainy and Charley, the plus is Guy is an excellent professional chef who loves to cook, which works in nicely with the fact that Rainy has never learned how. The only minus is Guy’s bossy cat – and the fact that Rainy seems to uncover lots of murderous clues and the occasional dead body…
Dead Blow by Lisa Preston
Horseshoer Mystery #2
Rainy Dale, female horseshoer, returns to solve another murder in this tale of love turned to hate and then murder.
What I liked:
* Rainy: what an interesting character she is!
* Guy: cook extraordinaire who truly loves Rainy
* Melinda: a friend in the making for Rainy
* The supporting characters – equine and human
* The plot and way the story played out
* The secondary romance
* The love of animals exhibited by more than one person in the story
* Learning more about the life of a horseshoer
* Learning more about horses and dogs
* The catching of the truly bad person who killed more than one person
What I did not like:
* The murderer…what a horrible person!
* Having to say goodbye to Rainy and her friends
* Having to wait for the next book to be published
Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing – Arcade CrimeWise for the ARC- This is my honest review.
5 Stars
Second great book in this series for the horse crowd
Okay, you don’t have to love horses to read this series but if you do you’ll enjoy it more, I’m sure.
The first book in the Horseshoer Mystery series was THE CLINCHER, which was also a winner.
DEAD BLOW is the second book in this series and it is outstanding. It takes place in and near a small town in Central Oregon.
Rainy and Guy got engaged in book one and are now tentatively starting to make wedding plans.
Rainy picks up a big horseshoeing job at a ranch owned and run by a widowed woman. She finds out from gossip around town there is some question whether the husband’s tractor accident that killed him was actually an accident.
So she starts asking questions and getting herself into trouble while Guy cooks her all kinds of yummy food.
I enjoy the characters. I enjoy the horse and horseshoeing details. I like that the book is set in central Oregon, a place I’ve been and live fairly close to.
I highly recommend this book to horse and mystery lovers.
I received this book from Simon & Schuster through Edelweiss in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.