We both utter a huge sigh. . .His in relief that his nightmare is over, mine because, for me, it never will be.

A moment ago, I woke in sweat-soaked sheets with my dog’s paws pummeling my back. I twisted, pulled his body into my chest, and murmured, “You’re okay.” Only he wasn’t. He was clamoring against the grip of yet another tortuous flashback and he couldn’t even hear my reassurances. Yet at my touch, his nostrils flared, and his eyes snapped open…

And with his sigh, he’s ready for a new day.

I’m not sure I ever am.

You see, you don’t complete three tours as a Marine in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan and suffer months in rehab, after an IED melts parts of you, without having lasting effects. Effects like molten scars that grab and pull with every movement or the type of pain that is only buffered by little pills or eased by my friend, Jack Daniels. Not that I’m addicted or anything. I mean, just try living with a maimed body and constant pain while dealing with your best friend’s injuries.

But we’re making it.

Oh, that best friend? It’s Wilco. The back scratcher. He’s a Belgian Malinois, though most people think he’s a German Shepard. Fact is, he’s brilliant, with a nose that can’t be matched. Ask the Marines. He was one of their best—and even now, deaf and missing a leg, Wilco’s nose is still on duty.

Which is the problem.

Wilco is an HRD dog, short for “human remains detection,” meaning we were a team that recovered bodies of fallen soldiers. And body parts of any dead human, fresh or otherwise.

Again, that’s the problem.

See, I returned home to help Gran, back to my Irish Traveler clan in Bone Gap, Tennessee. A tight-knit culture, rejected and isolated from the rest of society. Where, when trouble comes, we take care of our own problems, never involve “settled” law.

That’s until Wilco sniffs out the remains of a clan girl and suddenly we’re in the middle of a murder investigation, with the clan and local Sheriff at odds with each other and both pushing us to help their side.

Sides. I’m sick of picking sides. That was why I left my clan to join the Marines. All I’d wanted was to come home and heal. Yet here I am, forced to choose a side again. There’s only one side I can be on: whichever one that resolves the murder of a young girl and gives her family answers. Because, in reality, that is all that Wilco and I know how to do, the only thing that matters to us: bring the last remnants of a person’s life home.

And, this time, find out why their life was cut short.

You can read more about Brynn in Splintered Silence, the first book in the NEW “Bone Gap Travellers” suspense series.

Among the Irish Travellers living in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, no one forgets and no one forgives. And as former Marine MP Brynn Callahan finds out when she returns home, it’s hard to bury the past when bodies keep turning up . . .

After an IED explosion abruptly ends her tour of duty, Brynn arrives stateside with PTSD and her canine partner, Wilco—both of them bearing the scars of battle. With a mix of affection, curiosity, and misgivings, she goes back to Bone Gap, Tennessee, and the insular culture she’d hoped to escape by enlisting in the Marine Corps.

Marginalized and wary of outsiders, the Irish Travellers keep to themselves in a secluded mountain community, maintaining an uneasy coexistence with the “settled” townspeople of McCreary. When Wilco’s training as a cadaver dog leads Brynn to discover a body in the woods, the two worlds collide. Soon it’s clear that Brynn and Wilco are in danger – and they’re not the only ones.

After the police identify the dead woman, Brynn is shocked to learn she has a personal connection—and everything she’s been told about her past is called into question.

Forming a reluctant alliance with local sheriff Frank Pusser, Brynn must dig up secrets that not only will rattle her close-knit clan to its core, but may forever change her perception of who she is . . . and put her back in the line of fire.

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About the author
Susan Furlong is the author of the Georgia Peach Mystery series and the forthcoming suspense novel, Splintered Silence, the first book of the Bone Gap Travellers Mysteries. She also contributes to the New York Times bestselling Novel Idea Mysteries under the pen name Lucy Arlington. She has worked as a freelance writer, academic writer, ghost writer, translator, high-school language arts teacher, and a martial arts instructor. Raised in North Dakota, she graduated from Montana State University with a double major in French and Spanish. She and her family live in central Illinois. Visit Susan at susanfurlong.com

All comments are welcomed.