Customer Reviews

Smoky Mountain Tracks (Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries, Book 1)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the 1st book in the Raine Stockton Dog mystery series, we meet "retired" dog-tracker, Raine Stockton and her dog, Cisco. The team has been reluctantly called out to assist in a troubling case of a missing child in the Smoky Mountains of Hanover County, North Carolina. Raine has given up working as a Search and Rescue team after the death of her favorite dog, Cassidy. Cisco is not the dog that Cassidy was, and Raine is embarrassed when he alerts to a find that appears only to be an open can of baked beans. Stumbling back to her vehicle and working Cisco around a bridge that he is petrified of, Raine hurts her "bad" knee while falling next to the dead body of the little girl's kidnapper. Laid up with her injury, Raine is taken off the search team. Determined to help find the missing girl, Raine continues her search and finds peace with the death of her beloved dog, Cassidy, and the knowledge that she has another great dog still willing to go to work helping people.

Every once in awhile, I find a fantastic new series that grabs my attention from the beginning, and seizes my heart along with it. While reading this magnificent book, I felt a wide range of emotions, and was sad when it came to the end. Raine is a strong female character still reeling from the death of her beloved, devoted Golden. She doesn't trust the abilities of Cassidy's grandson, Cisco, but learns over the course of the book that she must let go of her grief and begin to trust her intelligent, sensitive young dog. I laughed at the dog's antics, I cried at the description of Cassidy's death, and went through the ups and downs of this twisting tale right along with this great team. As a dog lover, I am continually amazed at what these wonderful animals can do for us and it was great to see some of them highlighted in this extraordinary new series!

The next book in this series is "Rapid Fire". Enjoy!

As a friend and website host for late Bloodhound Mystery author Virginia Lanier, I've mourned not only my friend but the end of a great dog mystery series. With Smoky Mountain Tracks by Donna Ball, I feel I've found a new and wonderful friend.

Set in the North Carolina mountains, the sense of locale and characters is wonderful, and I hope to see the characters developed more fully in upcoming books. For those of us who love dogs, the details of the training and personalities of the dogs was great to read. While I occasionally "saw things coming," there were enough twists and turns to keep me interested right to the end, and I enjoyed every page.

Hanover County, North Carolina, nestled in the Smoky Mountains, is home to Raine Stockton, the estranged wife of Deputy Sheriff Buck Lawson. She is a dog trainer extraordinaire and used to go on search and rescue missions but since her beloved canine Cassidy died, she hasn't had the heart for it any longer. That is until she receives a frantic phone call at three in the morning from Buck asking her to take her SAR dog Cisco to help in the search for Cindy Winston and her daughter Angel.

When they fail to find them, she starts to return home when Cisco and Raine trip over the murdered body of Luke Pickens, a drug user and alcoholic, who kidnapped the two females but no proof of Cindy or Angel, is nearby. Cindy walks home to her mother's house injured by a bullet Luke put in her with no idea where Angel is. Upset that Cisco failed to find the missing girl, Raine starts asking questions, discovers that the whole episode might have to do with a land deal and continues to use her SAR canine to hunt for clues in Angel's disappearance.

Donna Ball is a famous multi-faceted author who has written compelling novels in the horror, romance, paranormal and women in jeopardy genres. Now she turns her considerable talent to mystery writing and has provides an exciting, original and suspense laden who-done it that will please her myriad of fans who have been waiting too long for her to publish another book. SMOKY MOUNTAIN TRACKS is a simply fabulous mystery starring a likable dedicated heroine; anyone who reads it will eagerly await the next book in the series.

Harriet Klausner

Travelling outside my regular crime series is always interesting. With this book, Donna Ball's first "Raine Stockton Dog Mystery", I am amazed to find that there is a already a full-blown sub-genre of crime fiction in existence: dog cozies. Donna Ball has apparently written near one hundred other books as well under pseudonyms. It shows. She obviously knows and loves her hounds also and the reader can't help but be drawn in. Her protagonist, Raine, is a dog trainer who is lured back into search and rescue work out of a sense of duty to her community and a missing child. Her reticence is tangible as she battles with doubts about her latest canine companion, Cisco, a golden retriever.

The reader is presented with a carefully thought out set of characters and Ball really does well with establishing her setting, a small community in the Smoky Mountains. She obviously also loves them mountains, because her descriptions have you feeling the mountain air and picturing the colours. The tension she sets up around her feelings for her heroic Cassidy, dead in action and her replacement dog, Cisco - a gift from her sometimes ex-husband Buck - is quite remarkable, I really felt for her. I enjoyed learning about the role dogs and their handlers play in search and rescue and also the different roles they play ie. Raine and her dog do search and rescue, Cisco is NOT a cadaver dog (thankyouverymuch)!

I devoured this book and immediately picked up her next, "Rapid Fire" and will be looking out for "Gun Shy". The three star rating just reflects small imperfections: some of the characterization is a little stock standard (such as Maude, her British 'lady companion') and the writing is a little 'lumpy' ie. it doesn't always flow. However, I believe Ball is really onto a winner for this series, in this genre. Dog lovers are an assured audience, and crime lovers will also wander across it as I did in the never ending quest for 'something to read'. My preference is more hard-boiled (again reflected in my rating), but Ball's work will do very nicely thankyou in the meantime.

Interesting characters, a decent plot, and a great sense of locale make this a very promising start to what I hope will be a long series. I was a step or two ahead of Raine while she wallowed in self-pity toward the end, but it was still a satisfying read. In a genre full of formulaic knock-offs, this one is an original.

This book kept my attention throughout. I really like Raine and having a mystery take place in the Smoky Mountains was wonderful. It is so beautiful there. The thing was she wasn't sure about her emotions. She went from refering to Buck as her exhusband to husband. How did that change so fast? I know she had feelings for him, but it seemed like it happened too fast. Also, the ending wasn't really tied together as most mysteries are. It was too open ended. Overall, I would read the next mystery in this series, but I need more closure.

This was the first book I have read in this series and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a good mystery, but I particularly liked the pet psychic subplot and the memory of her other "perfect" dog. Anyone who has lost a dog could relate to the sainthood of her former dog. I look forward to reading more in this series.

a sassy new heroine and her search and rescue dog -- good story, great characters, fun read.

Smoky Mountain Tracks, book one of the Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries, is a charming story full of mystery and mayhem and cute dog antics. Raine's character grows as she deals with the death of her beloved Golden Retriever, Cassidy, and finally makes room in her heart to love and trust Cisco while trying to solve a murder mystery and kidnapping that has a few surprising twists and turns. Although containing a few minor typographical errors, this was still a thoroughly enjoyable story with an easy-going style and a cast of interesting supporting characters. I loved the description of the dogs and their abilities and I hope future installments also include Sonny, the environmental lawyer able to communicate with dogs. I enjoyed this first book enough to purchase the second in the series.

I am not an avid reader, in fact I might be considered a non reader, so the simple reads are my preference.
I have "Smokey Mountain Tracks" on my Kindle, and fortunately I could take it any where I went (except the shower). I really enjoyed the story. I hated to put the book down. I enjoyed Mz Donna's style of writing.
I would recomend this book to anyone that likes simple mysteries, and are into K9's. Especially Golden Retrievers, because the reader can relate to Cisco's actions and behaviors, and get some chuckles and even memories. Good book.