Pretty good mystery/thriller set in Idaho. ( )

Pretty good mystery/thriller set in Idaho. ( )

McCall's mystery was complex and interesting. His lead characters were not. The bad guys were one-dimensional and the ultimate bad guy was unsubtly pointed out very early in the story. The setting was good but sometimes the language describing nature's beauty or feelings of love were just "way over the top."

SPOILER
One major plot flaw: "Where's the dog?" A woman came to hire Chris Klick to find 3 things: her missing husband, her money, and her dog. The dog was, by far, the most important to her, and had her in anguish over his loss. At one point, she had to make a quick getaway to another state, and presumably left the wounded dog alone in a laundry room (unnoticed, without comment!). When she and Klick finally returned to that house, the dog was never mentioned again. I was reading this book aloud, and nearly every page I turned in the last quarter of the book elicited another "But where's the dog?" ( )

Is this author really Ridley Pearson? I have my doubts because the dialogue in this book was incredibly lame and I didn't bother to finish it. because it was so annoying.