Gabriel Hawke is a Fish & Game State Trooper in Oregon. The story starts with Hawke encountering a well-known poacher with a hunting tag that's perfectly legal, for once, and a another hunter with him, whose tag was issued to the local district attorney, who is not part of this hunting party. From this seemingly mundane crime, the kind Hawke handles all the time, there slowly develops a disturbingly complex tangle of bodies, conflicting evidence, and clues weirdly pointing at a fatal car accident that happened decades ago when the current DA was in high school.
This is #3 in the series, but I didn't find it hard to catch up with the recurring characters. Gabriel has a dog named Dog, and two horses and mule, one of whom is named Horse, and I don't find that nearly as clever as many seem to, but he also convincingly cares about and for his animals. He's also got a growing circle of friends in the area, including Justine, who waits tables at his favorite breakfast spot, and Danny, the woman who runs the local hunting lodge. Neither is a love interest; they are genuinely friends. Even peripheral characters give the impression of being full and complex people with lives that persist when they're off-stage.
It's a satisfying and enjoyable mystery. Recommended.
I received a free copy of this audiobook from the author, and am reviewing it voluntarily.
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