Gathering Mist ( Timber Creek K-9 Mystery Book # 9 ) by Margaret Mizushima

Secrets hide within the fog deep in the mossy forests of the Pacific Northwest, in this ninth thrilling installment in award-winning author Margaret Mizushima’s Timber Creek K-9 Mystery series. 

Deputy Mattie Wray, formerly Mattie Cobb, is summoned to Washington’s Olympic peninsula for an urgent search and rescue mission to find a celebrity’s missing child. With only a week left before her wedding, Mattie is hesitant to leave Timber Creek, but her K-9 partner Robo’s tracking skills are needed.

Dense forest, chilling rain, and unfriendly locals hamper their efforts, and soon Mattie suspects something more sinister than a lost child is at play.  When one of the SAR dogs becomes ill, her fiancé Cole Walker suspects poison. Fearing for Mattie’s and Robo’s safety, Cole joins the search and rescue team as veterinary support.

Secrets that have lain hidden within the rugged terrain come to light and when it is uncovered that the missing child was kidnapped, the search becomes a full-blown crime scene investigation, forcing Mattie, Robo, and Cole into a desperate search to find the missing child before it's too late. (Summary via Goodreads)

Before I get into talking about my thoughts on the latest Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima, Gathering Mist, I really want to talk about the cover of this book.  This cover really captures the essence of the story and just by looking at the cover as you read this amazing story, you will actually FEEL the story through the cover.

In Gathering Mist main character Deputy Mattie Wray is about the marry her boyfriend, veterinarian Cole Walker, and become a family with him and his two daughters.  Unfortunately before they do that Mattie is called away to the site where a movie is fiming in the middle of the forest in Washington.  River the nine year old son of the main actress, Chrystal Winters, appears to have wondered off site and cannot be located.  They are requesting top K-9 search and rescue dogs to join in the search.  And Mattie's dog Robo is the best of the best.

But when another SAR dog becomes ill, Cole is brought in in case it was something serious.  He joins in the search and helps in anyway that he can.  Unfortunately they are up against harsh rain and cold temperatures and the searching is goinig slow with no signs of River. 

Readers will be so engrossed in the story that you will feel like you are getting wet from the rain and feel the chill in the air.  You will want to help Mattie and Robo find River safe and sound so that her and Cole can head back to Denver and get married and start their new lives together .... but you know that finding River alive is the only thing on their minds.