A Wyoming snowstorm races in bringing buried secrets to the surface.

A stray dog just dropped a bone at animal control officer Allan Carstair’s feet – a human bone. K9 cop Kelly Noveno is certain it’s connected to a recent disappearance, but with a snowstorm bearing down on Conard County, the two must hunker down in Allan’s cabin to continue the search. But their long held feeling are rushing to the surface, making this search more complicated than ever.

For once I actually liked the premise of the book (I’ve started and put down three other fiction books relating to SAR dogs).  Three missing teenagers, a dedicated cop, a significant other that wasn’t an idiot and a blizzard of epic proportions bearing down.  Add to that mix a Belgian Malanois and it seems like a no miss.

Rachel Lee even held my interest through the first third of the book.  Her writing was precise and effective,

"The gravel parking lot was clear of all but one vehicle, an aging pickup truck.  Neon signs in the windows didn't yet shimmer with life and wouldn't until Rusty officially opened his doors".

No mistaking this establishment as anything but a road side honky tonk.

And she developed the external conflict well, the storm and the grief of the parents of the missing girls heightening the despair of the searchers.  Been there, done that.  When a young one is missing the toxic mixture of grief, anger, anguish and hopelessness from the family descends upon us out looking for them.

But, there wasn’t any real conflict between the hero and heroine. He had the required PTSD from his military service.  Which supposedly made him able to help the heroine work through her anxiety about not being able to find the teenagers.  And the villain was just the village idiot, plopped in the story because there was a villain needed. Any conflict with him just felt forced.

The dog work…leaves a lot to be desired.  We are required to train at least 16 hours a month with our dogs. That’s industry standard, to keep both the dog and handler sharp.  The story took place over 3 weeks, but there was never a peep about training.

Then the dog was able to scent a glove from the suspect.  From a moving car. Sigh, a dog’s nose is amazing, but really?  And when at the suspect’s house, the dog had no reaction?  Then three weeks later was able to track from the body to where the glove was.  In the middle of Wyoming, during winter.  The dog should be a member of the Avengers, because he’s got some amazing super powers.

Then they had a dog trainer that brought 4 cadaver dogs to search an area that a family pet found a bone.  It wasn’t the fact that a family pet found the bone that made me mad, that happens all the time.  It was the fact that the AC was given a trained HRD dog to work the scene.  WTH?  It’s crime scene.  You don’t just waltz in with a dog and search away. Any defense lawyer would have a field day with that.

Then there were a couple of other things that were so dangerously wrong, I wanted to directly email the author.  The main one, the AC took a sick raccoon to the veterinarian to be treated for rabies. Raccoons die from rabies because there is no treatment. And people die from rabies when bitten by a rabid raccoon.  Argh.

Oh and one more thing.  A body doesn’t decompose to bones in less than 3 weeks, in Wyoming, in winter.

When I was reading back over my critique about the dog work, I had to laugh.  I can suspend disbelief when I read about shapeshifters, angels, vampires and dragons, but don’t you dare lie to me about search dogs!

So on a scale of:

4- keep it on the shelf and re-read

3- it took a week to read 

2- give it away

1- burn it

I give it a 2.5, because it took a week to read and I'll be sending it to the used book store. 

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