Rating: 4 out of 5.

This is another great mystery focusing on Deputy Mattie Cobb. She and her sister travel to Mexico to visit her mother, but find her gone. She returns home to find a note on her door telling her to find “him” among the standing dead. The sheriff’s race to the forest and they find a dead man tied to a tree. Mattie knows the man, and when she finds another note telling her that her mother is in bad shape, Mattie knows she has to do whatever it takes to save her.

Once again, the author writes a great mystery with plenty of tense action and twists and turns. I really like Mattie and the relationship with her vet fiance gets stronger and stronger. I find it so interesting how the author is able to find different ways for her fiance to be in the thick of the action, despite him being a civilian. I do hope, however, that we’re done with Mattie’s family drama so we can get back to normal mysteries that involve the entire sheriff’s department again. I missed having them be a bigger part of the story.