{"id":2679,"date":"2018-10-26T06:52:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T13:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=2679"},"modified":"2018-10-26T06:57:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T13:57:33","slug":"paula-munier-a-borrowing-of-bones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/paula-munier-a-borrowing-of-bones\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Munier: A Borrowing of Bones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This first novel can almost be slotted into a new subgenre \u2013 \u201cdog lit.\u201d\u00a0 It joins excellent books by Margaret Mizushima and Robert Crais in featuring working dogs (this one ex-military) who have a damaged human partner. (There\u2019s another one in the works from well known dog lover Owen Laukkanen.)\u00a0 Like Mizushima\u2019s novels, this one has a wonderful feel for setting, in this case, the Vermont woods.<\/p>\n

The main character, Mercy Carr, is back from Afghanistan with her partner\u2019s dog, Elvis.\u00a0 Both are mourning the loss of Mercy\u2019s partner, Martinez, and woman and dog are walking the woods together, trying to move past PTSD and become more of a unit.\u00a0 As the book opens they are out in the woods and Elvis finds a baby in a carrier with no mother in sight.<\/p>\n

Mercy takes the baby and heads for civilization \u2013 and a doctor \u2013 and encounters fish and game warden Troy Warner.\u00a0 Together they follow Elvis as he \u201calerts\u201d again, this time finding a human bone.\u00a0 The follow up to Elvis\u2019 find and their trek together with the baby bonds them, but even more, it bonds Mercy to the baby and makes her want to discover what kind of mother would abandon her baby in the woods.<\/p>\n

The story gets trickier when the baby disappears from the hospital shortly after Mercy brings her in.\u00a0 When a body is discovered linked to the baby\u2019s mother, the investigation grows exponentially.\u00a0 While the investigation part was really well done \u2013 and sprinkled with Shakespeare quotations, something I always appreciate \u2013 what really interested me in this novel was the relationship between Mercy and Elvis, and to a degree, the one that\u2019s obviously blossoming between Mercy and Troy.<\/p>\n

The best side bar character is Mercy\u2019s fierce grandmother Patience, a vet who tends to Elvis as well as to Mercy\u2019s mental well being.\u00a0 This is a densely textured novel, full of rich settings and characters and a tricky plot that holds your attention.\u00a0 The connection between the baby and her mother and the mother to the rest of the story is a tricky and twisted thread that winds through the novel.<\/p>\n

The small town setting and Mercy\u2019s place in that universe are nicely explored, as is Troy\u2019s tenuous connection to a case that he really should have nothing to do with as he\u2019s a fish and game warden, not a detective. This is a very fine first novel and Mercy and Elvis are two characters I\u2019d be more than willing to revisit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This first novel can almost be slotted into a new subgenre \u2013 \u201cdog lit.\u201d\u00a0 It joins excellent books by Margaret Mizushima and Robert Crais in featuring working dogs (this one ex-military) who have a damaged human partner. (There\u2019s another one in the works from well known dog lover Owen Laukkanen.)\u00a0 Like Mizushima\u2019s novels, this one … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5,26,24,25],"class_list":["post-2679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-americancozy","tag-military-dog","tag-natural-setting","tag-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2683,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions\/2683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}