Horseshoer Mystery
3 total works
Rainy Dale is The Clincher, a twenty-something high school-dropout turned farrier (horseshoer) who is haunted by a secret she carries. Estranged from her California D-list actress momma and her ranch hand Texas daddy, she tracked down her childhood horse in small-town Oregon—a land full of cowboys and their horses—then stayed to build a life with her tools, steel, and forge. She's sleeping in a garage and trying not to fall for her landlord, the hapless and hopeful chef, Guy, who is determined to create the perfect soufflé while Rainy would prefer to just stuff her mouth with fuel for her physically demanding job.
As the new kid in town, Rainy has an uphill battle to prove herself in order to make a living by her trade, especially to her male clients who look down their noses at a female farrier. She finds herself in over her head, however, when one of her clients turns up dead, setting her up as both a suspect and a seeker of the truth. If she plans on setting down roots in her new town, Rainy will have to find the killer and clear her name. But it a country as wild as the mustangs that used to run free, finding the truth just might get her killed.
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.
The Third Book in the Horseshoer Mystery Series, Featuring the Incorrigible Female Horseshoer, Rainy Dale
Days before her wedding, Rainy Dale jumps at a chance to visit the fabled Black Bluff bull sale down in California, but things go awry when she is assaulted and her truck is stolen.
In this twist on the 'locked-room' form, more than one mystery is hidden on the ranch where Rainy and her dog, Charlie, end up. Everyone - the owners, ranch hands, angry neighbours, and perhaps even the deliveryman who brings coke coal for the ranch's old-fashioned forge - is harbouring a damaging secret. When Rainy realises that even her dog knows a grisly hidden truth, the stakes are raised as high as life and death.