Retired dentist Paul Osborne finds four bodies in a frozen cage in a northern lake. With Chief Lew out of town, he calls the dispatcher to get her temporary replacement Sloan out to gather evidence until Lew can get back. He and Ray Pradt are deputized by both Sloan and Lew to assist with the investigation. One of the bodies has a piece of dental work that Osborne is certain he performed himself, but he's equally certain that it was a visitor to the area instead of a resident. He has to search his dental records to locate the identity of the victim. It's an interesting read, but it's also one that you can put down. Most of the recurring characters are likeable to a certain extent. Fishing enthusiasts will probably love that aspect of this series. ( )

Dead Creek is the second in the Loon Lake Fishing Mysteries series and really…who would have thought fishing could be even remotely interesting to read about! Go figure! We rejoin the original cast of main characters (Chief Ferries, Doc Osborn, Ray Pradt). The story starts out innocuously enough with Doc Osborn out fishing muskies in his favorite (and secret) fishing hole when he discovers four bodies submerged there. Once again Doc Osborn finds himself an integral part of an interesting and twisted murder investigation that takes them through murder, theft, revenge, and even an ecological disaster to solve this most recent crime. I love that Houston can take what could be a pretty cut and dry police procedural and gives it a nice small town flavor that is wonderfully engaging and just plain fun to read. I love that these are older characters than one usually finds in this type of book (over 50 for the most part), it’s definitely nice to see people over 50 being the hero, instead of it always being young, (emphasis usually on physical attractiveness of characters) 25 year old…don’t get me wrong, those are fun too…but you don’t get middle aged all the way up to retired people in the murder-mystery/thriller genre too often anymore. Nice change of pace. I also like that these are REAL characters, they have flaws, faults and real life problems that they must also deal with while solving the mystery…it really helps to cement that feeling that these aren’t just characters, they’re real people.

My only complaint about this follow up novel is the author uses some of the exact same descriptive paragraphs from the first book (with regards to the main characters and some of the place descriptions). I assume the repetition so that readers do not have to have read the first book to follow this one, but reading them more than once was a little “old” and if it continues, it may turn me off reading any more of her work. Aside from that…a really great read, quick and entertaining. I managed to figure this one out way before it ended…but still enjoyed reading it! ( )