The purpose of Thrifty Thursday is to read a book which was free (at some point).
Kindle freebie on March 8, 2026 (currently $4.99 at Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited as of writing this post)
Overall rating 4.39 with 1,360 ratings and 71 reviews
Trail Gone Dark by Sophie Lyon Series: K9 Search & Rescue Mysteries #1
on October 31, 2019
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 371
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
Amazon, Audible
Three days in the mountains. No satellite signal. No sign of life.
When Gemma Hartley’s pager sounds before dawn — MISSING PERSON, 72 HOURS OVERDUE — she and her legendary German Shepherd Kira are in the truck within twelve minutes. That’s what they do. That’s what they are. But what Gemma expects to be a routine search becomes something else entirely when Kira finds Alexis Mercer’s body at the base of Devil’s Ledge — and the evidence points not to accident, but to murder.
I so wanted to love Trail Gone Dark, which is the first in a 14 book series, K-9 Search & Rescue Mysteries. It has my favorite things K-9 searches, police investigations, a background romance and the beauty of Colorado.
Gemma Hartley comes to this smaller town by way of Minneapolis where she was a paramedic. She is on the SAR team here and of course, uses her EMT skills. She left Minneapolis due to one of her team losing his life in a flash flood.
The plot and characters are fine and I really enjoyed the searches. My problem is the writing which is very repetitive. The same things are repeated multiple times. The book would have been cleaner without that and shorter. It would improve the pacing significantly.
The other weird thing is the editing. A six year old missing boy was called Matteo and Lucas. Another victim’s sister was named Jennifer and later in the book she is Elena. It is also odd Gemma is allowed to investigate with the police, sit in on their meetings and go on their interviews of witnesses. It makes sense she is knowledgeable about evidence collection and crimes scenes but the rest is unlikely, although it is a small town.
I am so sad because with some editing this could be really good. I can’t believe there are 13 more books and wonder if the later books have more editing. Also – it looks like the audio version is computer generated.
I read all types of books but my favorites are urban fantasy and romantic suspense.I like some romance and some action / adventure / mystery in everything.I like sex in my books but please, only between TWO people.Intimate conversation is equally important to the sex in a book.It lets me see the characters.The other thing I enjoy is humor.
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 26-COYER
What a shame. You cannot short shrift on the editing process.
yes! It could have been great. There was real promise here.
It does seem to have good bones and a shame that a highly anticipated one was loose on easy edits.
I don’t understand it.
yayy for cheap books!!
I try to get in my freebies at least one each month.
Sounds like all the drawbacks could’ve been corrected with a good editor. Overly repetitive and inconsistencies would/should be caught. Oh well.
yes and it had good concepts and plot.
I love this genre. Sorry, this one was so rough.
It’s sad because really it just needed good editing..
That sounds like really bad editing
yes and the book would be great with more editing.
Sorry this didn’t work. If a story is good, but the writing doesn’t work, then I also have to put things down too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
yes the concepts were good but I felt it needed more editing.