Review: Terminated at the Trailhead by Beth Dolgner

Posted September 5, 2025 by Lola in Fantasy, Mystery, Review / 8 Comments

Review graphic

Terminated at the TrailheadTerminated at the Trailhead (Nightmare, Arizona #9)
written by Beth Dolgner
narrated by Petrea Burchard

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
Terror, Treasure, and Triumph in Nightmare, Arizona

When Olivia Kendrick and her friends stumble on a dead body at a state park, it’s clear supernatural forces were to blame. At the same time, shady people are showing up in Nightmare, and every one of them had a reason to kill.

As rumors swirl about something powerful hidden in Nightmare, another murder victim puts the staff of Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House on high alert. Is there a serial killer on the loose, or are there two killers to catch?

Meanwhile, Olivia and her friends have an encouraging new lead about the whereabouts of Baxter Shackleford, the haunted house’s missing owner. It will take the combined abilities of them all to get the answers they need…

Terminated at the Trailhead is book nine in the Nightmare, Arizona paranormal cozy mystery series. This lighthearted series is about starting over, found family, and solving murders in a quirky old mining town with a secret supernatural community.

My Review

I received a free copy from Tantor Audio and voluntarily reviewed it.

Terminated at the Trailhead is the 9th book in this series. I really like this series and was excited to listen to this next installment. It was such a good one too. This one has not the usual type of mystery, yes there is a dead body again, but the mystery is also very closely connected to the search for Baxter and there is huge progress on that front. I liked seeing it all play out, the ending did leave me with some questions, but I think the next book will deal with that.

The mystery in this one was more about the ghouls and what they are guarding and how they can find Baxter, but there also is a dead body and that mystery is closely tied in with the bigger mystery surrounding the ghouls. So both mysteries kinda advance together and are tied together. It did have a different vibe than the previous books mystery wise, but I thought this worked well. This book really felt like they were getting so close and the overarching mystery of Baxter is finally getting resolved. So that was interesting. I liked seeing it all play out.

I really like reading about all these characters and all of them have their moment to shine and make appearances in this book. Olivia and Damien’s romance is still deepening and I like them as a couple. It was so fun to read about all the characters again and I also liked seeing Lucy’s character plot line develop a bit more.

To summarize: I really like this series and this was another great installment. The mystery is a bit different as the dead body they find ties in with a bigger mystery surrounding ghouls who are guarding something and the search for Baxter. I thought that worked well and I was eager to see it all play out. The ending left me with some questions, but I think the next book will answer those. There are lots of interesting characters and it was fun spending more time with all of them and reading more about them.

4 Stars

Links:
Goodreads
Bookbub
Amazon
B&N
Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.

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