A Borrowing of Bones by Paula Munier is the first book in the NEW “Mercy and Elvis” mystery series, coming Sep 11, 2018 from Minotaur Books

Grief and guilt are the ghosts that haunt you when you survive what others do not. . .

After their last deployment, when she got shot, her fiancé Martinez got killed and his bomb-sniffing dog Elvis got depressed, soldier Mercy Carr and Elvis were both sent home, her late lover’s last words ringing in her ears: “Take care of my partner.”

Together the two former military police—one twenty-nine-year-old two-legged female with wounds deeper than skin and one handsome five-year-old four-legged Malinois with canine PTSD—march off their grief mile after mile in the beautiful remote Vermont wilderness.

Even on the Fourth of July weekend, when all of Northshire celebrates with fun and frolic and fireworks, it’s just another walk in the woods for Mercy and Elvis—until the dog alerts to explosives and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones.

U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear respond to Mercy’s 911 call, and the four must work together to track down a missing mother, solve a cold-case murder, and keep the citizens of Northshire safe on potentially the most incendiary Independence Day since the American Revolution.

It’s a call to action Mercy and Elvis cannot ignore, no matter what the cost.

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What happens when a strong and determined retired MP and her PSTD soldier dog meet a game warden and his search and rescue dog? Well, step inside the pages of A Borrowing of Bones and you’ll find a terrific drama worth reading. Mercy finds an abandoned baby, long-buried bones and her dog sniffs out elements of explosive all in a supposedly routine day. And in that time, her reluctance to stop digging brings her in touch with game warden Troy which with her instincts and his knowledge of the wooded terrain, finds themselves involved in a case, where the police wants them to have no hand in it. Does that stop our duo? No and it’s their dogged pursuit that lends itself to a book that has become one of my favorite reads

This fast-paced and intoxicating drama immediately grabbed my attention and I was immersed in all aspects from plot-line to character development to the dialogue to just about everything, in this well-written and executed tale. The author knows how to keep this reader involved by creating a complex and determine yet flawed heroine who as one of the other characters in the book called her “word nerd,” uses that skill to disseminate the clues that were presented to her. When her charge disappears, she is more than determined to find her, especially when outside forces are one step ahead. Several red herrings were tossed into the mix but the one that got me was the role the doctor played and that I did not see coming. This was a great debut and I’m already eager to read the next book in this terrific drama. A bonus to me was meeting Troy, Patience, Thrasher and of course Elvis and Susie Bear.

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FTC Full Disclosure – I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.