Digging Up Bones: Book Two
Cloister Witte and his K-9 partner, Bourneville, find the lost and bring them home.
But the job doesn’t always end there.
Janet Morrow, a young trans woman, lies in a coma after wandering away from her car during a storm. But just because Cloister found the young tourist doesn’t mean she’s home. What brought her to Plenty, California… and who didn’t want her to leave?
With the help of Special Agent Javi Merlo, who continues to deny his growing feelings for the rough-edged deputy, Cloister unearths a ten-year-old conspiracy of silence that taps into Plenty’s history of corruption.
Janet Morrow’s old secrets aren’t the only ones coming to light. Javi has tried to put his past behind him, but some people seem determined to pull his skeletons out of the closet. His dark history with a senior agent in Phoenix complicates not just the investigation but his relationship with Cloister.
And since when has he cared about that?
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Cat gives this one 5 Meows...
This is book two in the Digging up Bones Series. I think you could read it as a stand-alone but you would have a better understanding of Javi and Cloister if you read in order.
I really loved the first book in this series - Bone to Pick and have been waiting impatiently for this one. It is not your run of the mill romance. It really isn't a romance at all but good suspense with ...I am not sure what to call what Cloister and Javi has except hot.
This story starts a lot like the first. With lots of action that draws you in. Cloister is tracking a missing woman. There are shocking turns in the first chapter that had me nearly jumping. I did shout out "Holy Crap" scared my husband as it was late and we are in bed both of us reading. Cloister is a K-9 cop and his dog Bourneville is as much part of the story as is Javi and himself. I think that is so cool.
There are lots of cool things about this book. The main secondary character never has a speaking part. She is in a coma throughout this story and yet T.A. Moore makes her relatable, likable and I wanted to know more and more. There are so many twists and turns, lots of action and suspense, The story is page-turning, riveting, intriguing and hot.
My only issue is it ends abruptly and I wanted more. I am hoping it is open for another book in the series and we get much much more Javi and Cloister.
If you like a good mystery/suspense with some hot man-sex and cute working dogs, this is for you.
Excerpt...
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Excerpt...
THE STORM blew in with the commuters at sunset, a wet slap of weather that made the roads treacherous and made everyone forget how to drive. It wouldn’t stay long. Based on the forecasts, it would have blown on down the road to the bright lights of San Diego by tomorrow. Plenty would be left a bit wetter, not much wiser, and full of freshly dented cars.
Unfortunately for Janet Morrow, she had the bad luck to go missing tonight.
An idiot in a shiny bug-sized car cut across the lane in front of the Challenger as Cloister took the turn onto Hot Springs Road. Cloister hit the brakes and spat out a curse between his teeth. In the back, Bourneville whined her objection to the sudden maneuver as she slipped on the plastic-covered floor. The driver of the bug jabbed a finger up at Cloister through the window as he fishtailed precariously toward the off-ramp.
It had been a long shift. Cloister clenched his jaw and resisted the part of himself that had learned how to deal with conflict at his stepdad’s heels. It didn’t matter how many times you punched someone, they never actually learned, so he didn’t follow the bug car off the road. Besides, he had a job to do.
“He’s gonna kill himself anyhow, Bon,” he said as he leaned forward to squint over the windshield. The rain was heavy enough to make it difficult to see, a stream of water so dense it seemed as though someone had turned on a tap. The occasional flash of lightning lit the night like garish fireworks but didn’t help visibility at all. “Sometimes you got to be the better man, right?”
She barked at him.
“Fine,” Cloister said. “Better man and/or dog. Happy now.”
She barked again.
Cloister did make a note of the man’s license plate. He wasn’t that good a man.
The turnoff for Delacourt appeared suddenly out of the rain. The tarmac was already striped with rubber streaks, and the barrier was scraped red with paint from someone’s driver’s-side door. Tomorrow would be a good day for body shops in Plenty.
“Shit,” Cloister muttered.
He flashed the blues—a splash of color bounced off the wet road—and cut across the road as the truck behind him braked obediently. He felt the way the tires slid as he took the turn over wet road and spilled oil. A lighter car with a driver who hadn’t learned to drive on shit Montana country roads, and he might have ended up in the gully with the angular red—what it hadn’t left on the barrier—Prius.
A heavyset deputy, his identity obscured under a drenched slicker that drooped down to his nose, tried to wave Cloister on his way with a flashlight. He jogged up to the car when Cloister pulled to the side of the road instead.
“…is under control,” he said. From the voice and acne-scarred chin, Cloister identified him as Collins and dropped the window an inch, enough for the wind to blast in a cold spray of rain. “Just move….”
“I would if I could,” Cloister said. “What happened?”
The call on his radio said there was a missing girl and a car accident on Delacourt. Mel hadn’t had time to give him any more details. Rain always made for a busy shift.
“Oh, it’s you, Witte.” Collins pushed his hood back and roughly wiped his hand over his face. He flicked rain and snot off his fingers against the window. “Sorry. It’s the rain. Can’t see my hand in front of my face.”
“Yeah, I nearly missed the turn,” Cloister admitted. “Where’s Tancredi?”
Collins turned and pointed the flashlight down at the Prius. It picked out Tancredi like a pointer. She was hunched under her jacket as she taped plastic over the door of the car. The flicker of light against the paintwork caught her attention, and she turned around, squinted into the rain, and gestured urgently for Cloister to come down and join her.
“Want me to close the road?” Collins asked hopefully. It would get him in out of the rain.
Cloister thought about it, but after a second he shook his head.
“Not yet,” he said. “Just keep any cars that come this way moving.”
TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide. As her grandmother always said, ‘she’d laugh at a bad thing that one’, mind you, that was the pot calling the kettle black. TA Moore studied History, Irish mythology, English at University, mostly because she has always loved a good story. She has worked as a journalist, a finance manager, and in the arts sectors before she finally gave in to a lifelong desire to write.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
Website: www.nevertobetold.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TA.Moores
Twitter: @tamoorewrites
