Bone to Pick (Digging Up Bones Book 1) by TA Moore

K-9 deputy Cloister Witte would rather anything other than being forced to work with FBI agent Javier Merlo again. But there's a missing child, and Javi needs Cloister, maybe more than either realize.

From the blurb:

Cloister Witte is a man with a dark past and a cute dog. He’s happy to talk about the dog all day, but after growing up in the shadow of a missing brother, a deadbeat dad, and a criminal stepfather, he’d rather leave the past back in Montana. These days he’s a K-9 officer in the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and pays a tithe to his ghosts by doing what no one was able to do for his brother—find the missing and bring them home. He’s good at solving difficult mysteries. The dog is even better.

This time the missing person is a ten-year-old boy who walked into the desert in the middle of the night and didn’t come back. With the antagonistic help of distractingly handsome FBI agent Javi Merlo, it quickly becomes clear that Drew Hartley didn’t run away. He was taken, and the evidence implies he’s not the kidnapper’s first victim. As the search intensifies, old grudges and tragedies are pulled into the light of day. But with each clue they uncover, it looks less and less likely that Drew will be found alive.


SNik's review:

First in series (Digging Up Bones). Adversarial coworkers. POC representation. Dual POV. 

Every time FBI agent Javier Merlo opens his mouth Cloister wants to punch it closed, even if the man is attractive and Cloister has to work with him sometimes. There’s something about K-9 Deputy Cloister Witte that twists Javi up in knots, but he wants to move up the FBI ladder not get into a relationship. 

This story focuses on a missing child case and the two enforcement officers that are investigating while dancing around a mutual attraction that both agree can’t go anywhere. Both Cloister and Javi have difficult backgrounds and are hardened by their lived experiences, and Javi especially is hard to like as he is very antagonistic. So, even though this wasn’t a romance per se (there are some steamy scenes), it is the beginning of something, and I am super invested to see how this relationship grows. I enjoyed the plotline and the complicated characters and look forward to more with Cloister and Javi.


Bone to Pick is currently available as an audiobook, e-book and paperback