Bone to Pick

Bone to Pick (2017) TA Moore (Digging Up Bones)

Cloister Witte is a K9 deputy. He also has a problem with authority and recurring nightmares from his childhood.

He was tanned the color of whiskey, and his hair was wet and honey streaked, dripping onto his shoulders. Ink scrawled up over his ribs, but the pattern was shattered by a burst of pale white scar tissue.

Javi Merlo is the Acting SSA for the FBI’s one-man office in Plenty CA. Plenty has more than it’s share of troubles, with active drug traffickers and a local police department that was disbanded due to corruption. He’s a good agent, but he has zero interest in romance, wants only to recover his reputation.

Sometimes Javi was such a prick it was hard to share his head with himself.

Let’s be clear, Javi IS an asshole.

“Seriously?” Cloister asked, raising his eyebrows. “So instead of commitment issues, you’d rather people think you’re a snob with a taste for rough trade?

Cloister is a mess, and is willing to take fucking over a relationship, because he doesn’t believe he deserves anything else. It’s actually difficult at times to watch Cloister have so very little respect for himself.

“Cloister.”

“Really?” Javi asked. “I thought that was a nickname because you were religious. I didn’t know your mother hated you.”

Cloister did a rolling stop at the exit. There weren’t enough people on the road to merit a full stop. Sometimes being a cop made you worryingly blasé about traffic laws.

“It was her maiden name,” he said. “She didn’t hate me till later.”

(H)e thought the fact that his mother hated him would sting until the day they tossed the dirt on top of him.

Especially since Cloister will defend the helpless and those in need at the drop of a hat, but is unable to see any value in himself–he looks like a bully redneck, and sees little use in dressing and acting in a manner that might convince people otherwise.

For most of his life, looking like the guy most likely to throw a punch had helped him avoid having to throw any punches.

He’d rather spend all his time and money on Bon, his partner, and to hell with the rest of the world.

“You want to walk around here barefoot?”

“I’m not a dog,” Javi said.

“Neither is Bourneville,” Cloister said. “She’s a sheriff’s department deputy, and it costs more when she’s on sick leave than it does when you are.” Javi snorted like he didn’t believe that. He’d obviously never seen a vet bill.

Cloister and Javi have to work together on a missing child case–Cloister because he and Bon do Search & Rescue, and Javi because the FBI is of course involved in a missing child case.

It was an interesting mystery, because it didn’t go anywhere I had been expecting. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have suspicions about characters and who was involved, but they whys were both surprising and understandable–and so many things came back to the past corruption of the Plenty PD.

I quite enjoyed this, even as I kept thinking Javi was a complete asshole and wanted Cloister to stand up for himself already.

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Rating: 7/10

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