Audiobook Review: Bone to Pick by TA Moore

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 woods 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.

Narrator: Michael Fell
Listening Length: 9 hrs

Cloister just made my list of favorite MC's and I found a narrator new to me that I really like. So this audiobook was a big win for me. Michael Fell's voice for Cloister was perfectly understated and his subtle charm, heartbreaking background and relationship with his K9 partner made me fall for him pretty hard. If you’re a sucker for pets in your stories and I know I’m talking to most everyone in the room here, you’ll love Cloister too.

Javi Merlo, Mr. Handsome Stoic FBI Man, is the perfect foil for Cloister’s personality. He’s the MC that is career driven has no time for romantic frivolities, but then he starts working with Cloister on a missing persons case and he can’t help but get the feels. They are Javi-level feels though, so don’t go in expecting much in the way of purple prose.

Let me expound on that a bit . . . Bone to Pick is heavier on mystery than romance, but there were enough moments between Cloister and Javi to keep me happy. I'm also a big fan of detective mysteries so I was OK with the mystery being center stage. And it was good with lots of twists and turns. Cloister’s connection with the type of case they were working on allowed Cloister’s history to be shared organically which I really liked. I was dying to know, but I didn’t want to be told, I wanted to hear it from Cloister as he felt comfortable sharing. And he’s not a guy to just share so it wouldn’t have felt right if it had been all laid out there right away.

The only thing I wished for was just a little more. It feels like there should be another book for Cloister and Javi. It’s not that there were any unanswered questions. The mystery was solved, it wasn’t too neat or pretty, so it kept its integrity throughout and Javi and Cloister came together one more time after the pressure of the case passed, so it definitely wasn’t going to be a stress boning, but I’d be hard pressed to say the HFN was too optimistic. An HEA wouldn’t have been realistic for them just yet, but they have such steamy chemistry and an honest appreciation for each other that they were just figuring out.

I want another story for them because as I’ve mentioned before, I LOVE CLOISTER, by the end I really had a soft spot for Javi and I really loved their dynamic. There’s a lot more that could happen with them and I think it would make for a great story. Plus the author writes a hell of a mystery so more of that would be welcome to me. I’ll also be looking for more books narrated by Michael Fell. His tone has a quality that makes him very easy on the ears and a sincerity that made me care about the characters voices.

**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**