Second in the 'Carson Stables Mystery' series set on the windswept Olympic Peninsula, SADDLE UP FOR MURDER by Leigh Hearon is the tale of Annie Carson who cares more for animals than people. She doesn't have much of a relationship with local law enforcement, other than working with them to rescue a neglected mule. That relationship changes drastically, however, when she finds a young woman dead in her own barn. Ashley Lawton, who had loved horses, recently had asked Annie for a job, but Annie was so used to doing everything herself she refused. Is this the reason Ashley hung herself? Or was the scene staged by a murderer, and in either case, why pick Annie's horse barn? Sheriff Dan Stetson tells her Ashley had worked for a home help service but left after finding an elderly lady dead in her bed. Allegedly, Ashley had been helping herself to the patient's pills. This combination of fishy circumstances makes the sheriff warn Annie to keep her rifle on hand at night. The story, while engaging, has a plot gap. Readers are regularly told Annie has two dogs and a donkey that alert her to intruders. But the dogs are not mentioned when the police are present and no one ever asks Annie if her dogs had barked during the night. This makes it seem as if the book was written by two authors, one for the crime scenes and one for animal scenes. SADDLE UP FOR MURDER is the continuation of REIGNING IN MURDER and readers would benefit from reading the original story first.