Blind Search

September 16, 2019
The murder of architect Alice de Clare, who was found on the estate of Vermont billionaire Daniel Feinberg with an arrow through her heart, propels Munier’s appealing sequel to 2018’s A Borrowing of Bones. Daniel hires former military MP Mercy Carr and her bomb-sniffing Belgian shepherd, Elvis, to investigate. Mercy’s love interest, game warden Troy Warner, and his search and rescue dog, Susie Bear, lend a hand. They’re aided by nine-year-old math whiz Henry Jenkins, a possible witness, whose father was in love with Alice. The killer could be among the well-heeled hunting party that Daniel is hosting, whose entwined histories date back to the early 1980s, and as Mercy teases out their secrets, she also explores her growing attraction to Troy. The hunting party’s overly complex interpersonal relationships often bog down the action, but Munier’s affection for the dogs she depicts, as well as Henry’s sweet bond with them, will warm hearts. Readers will look forward to the irresistible Mercy and Elvis’s next adventure.

September 15, 2019
A boy who likes to wander and dogs that live to find the missing add up to an exciting adventure in rural Vermont. Still mourning the death of her fiance in Afghanistan but comforted by Elvis, his bomb-sniffing dog, Mercy Carr has formed an attachment to Game Warden Troy Warner and his search dog, Susie Bear, who were her partners in solving a murder (A Borrowing of Bones, 2018). When she hears shots, Mercy tracks Elvis, who's vanished into the woods owned by Daniel Feinberg, her wealthy friend and neighbor. Feinberg's hunting party has found a large bear in the tree to which groundskeeper Gunnar Moe's pack of Norwegian elkhounds chased him. But Elvis has turned up something even more disturbing: a young woman with an arrow in her chest. The dead woman is Alice de Clare, an architect and weekend guest of Daniel's who's been working with his other guests--Blake and Katharine Montgomery, Caspar and Cara Farrow, Lea Sanders and Ethan Jenkins--on a project to renovate the Bluffing Bear Inn. Mercy's discoveries continue when she finds a pajama-clad boy in the woods who may be a witness to murder. The boy is Henry Jenkins, an autistic 9-year-old math genius who speaks little but knows much and finds the dogs calming. As Troy well knows, the woods are beautiful but menacing, occupied by the most dangerous beasts, human lawbreakers. Even so, Mercy believes that the killer is most likely one of Feinberg's guests, most of whom have been friends ever since they attended prep school together. Certain that the headline-seeking State Police detective will get everything wrong, Mercy and Troy use Feinberg's estate as a base for hunting the killer. Their most difficult task is protecting Henry, whose wandering is a danger to himself and the people and dogs who guard him. An action-packed story of triumph over adversity.

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November 1, 2019

In Munier's second novel featuring former military police Mercy Carr and her retired bomb-sniffing Belgian Malinois Elvis (A Borrowing of Bones), a young woman is found dead in the woods of the Green Mountains during hunting season--shot with an arrow. While local officials gather evidence, Mercy and Elvis reunite with game warden Troy Warner and his search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear to track a lost child, potentially a witness to the murder. Susie Bear and Elvis lead them deep into the Vermont forest to Henry, a nine-year-old on the autism spectrum, who has a lot of fear yet trusts in the dogs and seems to hold the keys to mysteries and hearts alike. As attacks accumulate and escalate, Mercy, Troy, and their canine colleagues must unravel the mystery and keep Henry safe. Charming working dogs are the icing on the cake in this story, Vermont is as tough a character as Mercy, and Munier writes them with both intricacy and ease. VERDICT Returning readers will celebrate this sequel; those new to Mercy and Elvis will be delighted to catch a solid series in its early days. All will look forward to more.--Julie Kane, Washington & Lee Lib., Lexington, VA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2019
Writers like Alex Kava, Sara Driscoll, Margaret Mizushima, Robert Crais, and Munier extend their detectives' reach by teaming them with working dogs. This gives an extra kick to the traditional detective-sidekick relationship with fascinating details about canines who can contribute both comfort to the sleuth and supersized sensory skills to the investigatory process. In Munier's Mercy and Elvis novels (this is the second in the series, following A Borrowing of Bones, 2018), Mercy Carr is a former army MP returned to Vermont from Afghanistan, and Elvis is a bomb-sniffing Malinois shepherd, entrusted to her care by her boyfriend, who died in Afghanistan. In the two mysteries, the still-grieving Mercy and still-traumatized Elvis team up with the local game warden and his working dog, a Newfoundland search-and-rescue hulk. This time, Mercy and Elvis find a woman lying in the Vermont woods, an arrow piercing her heart. The woman, a French architect, belonged to a hunting party of wealthy, competitive urbanites. Intensifying the mystery is the disappearance near book's end of an autistic boy who may have witnessed the murder. There's so much to praise here: Munier's deep knowledge of the culture of hunting (especially the bow-and-arrow variety); her brisk, incisive characterizations; the way she maintains a taut line of suspense throughout; and, best of all, her portrayals of wounded yet still courageous pairs of humans and dogs. A not-to-be-missed K-9 mystery.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)