Ten novels featuring the high country of the American West

Margaret Mizushima is the author of the award-winning and internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She serves as president for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, was elected the 2019 Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and is also a member of Northern Colorado Writers, Sisters in Crime, and Women Writing the West. She lives in Colorado on a small ranch with her veterinarian husband where they raised two daughters and a multitude of animals.

Mizushima's latest novel is Striking Range.

[Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah, Bertie, Lily and Tess; Coffee with a Canine: Margaret Mizushima & Hannah; My Book, The Movie: Burning Ridge; The Page 69 Test: Burning Ridge; The Page 69 Test: Tracking Game; My Book, The Movie: Hanging Falls; The Page 69 Test: Hanging Falls; Q&A with Margaret Mizushima]

At Crimereads Mizushima tagged ten mysteries in which the rugged terrain and unforgiving elements of the high country of the American West become characters central to the story, including:

Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish

The Cold Dish is New York Times bestselling author Craig Johnson’s first of seventeen novels in his Walt Longmire Mysteries. In the television series based on these novels, Johnson’s protagonist, Sheriff Walt Longmire, comes to life giving us a hero as rugged as the landscape in the setting for his novels, Wyoming’s Absaroka County. Full of memorable characters, this series provides another binge-worthy experience in which avid readers will want to immerse themselves.

Read about another entry on the list.

My Book, The Movie: The Cold Dish.

--Marshal Zeringue