A Borrowing of Bones
By Paula Munier
342 pages, 2018, fiction/mystery
Mercy Carr, a military police officer, was shot during her last deployment in Afghanistan. Her fiancé, officer Martinez, was killed. His last words to Mercy were for her to take care of “his partner,” a bomb-sniffing Malinois dog named Elvis.
Mercy retired and bought a remote cabin in Northshire, Vt., her hometown. She and Elvis have been healing and taking long hikes in the woods. Just before the fourth of July weekend, Elvis alerts to something in the woods. And then Mercy hears something crying; it sounds like a cat, but it’s no cat – it’s a baby!
Mercy rescues the abandoned infant and calls for help. State Game Warden Troy Warner and his Newfoundland retriever mix, Susie Bear, come to meet them. She remembers Troy from when he was a teenaged lifeguard in town. The two begin to investigate. The baby’s mother is found, but then the baby disappears, a cold case is uncovered, and two people are murdered.
Mercy is repeatedly warned off of the case by senior officers because she is now a civilian. But she and Troy continue to investigate and come across a revolutionary group called Vermont Firsters. There are masked men shooting at people, kidnappings, murders, a wily and attractive professor, art installations found in the woods, and art thefts in this tale – and lots of twists and turns!
Through it all, Mercy and Troy keep searching and also start to find things in common. The two people and two dogs are all terrific characters and they make quite a crime-fighting team!
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Robbin Bailey
