Paula Munier Lee Books in Order

Paula Munier Lee, known to mystery readers as Paula Munier, grew up in a military family that moved often. Her childhood took her from Georgia to Germany, Oklahoma, Ohio, and points in between. As an only child who was frequently the new kid, she found steady company in books and dogs.

A ninth-grade teacher told her mother that she ought to be a writer. Munier ignored the advice for a while, then began writing articles in college to earn extra money. It was a practical beginning to a career built around stories.

Books and dogs were her constants.

After a divorce left her supporting two children, Munier talked her way into an editorial job at a business magazine in Monterey, California. She went on to work as a reporter and editor for newspapers and magazines before moving into book publishing. There, she spent years as an acquisitions editor, helping other writers shape and sell their work.

That behind-the-scenes experience became a major part of her working life. In 2012, she joined Talcott Notch Literary Services as a senior agent and content strategist. She has also taught writing, led workshops, and written practical craft books including The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, Writing with Quiet Hands, and Plot Perfect.

Her fiction took a more direct route to the page after she had already spent years in publishing. A Borrowing of Bones, published in 2018, introduced former Army MP Mercy Carr and Elvis, the Belgian Malinois bomb-sniffing dog who once belonged to Mercy’s late fiancé. The novel begins with a walk in Vermont’s woods and quickly becomes a case involving an abandoned baby, old bones, and a dangerous search for the truth.

The Mercy Carr books give Munier room to bring together several things she knows and cares about: working dogs, veterans, wilderness, and the way a small town can hold both kindness and long-kept secrets. In Blind Search, Mercy, Elvis, game warden Troy Warner, and search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear face a winter murder investigation. The Hiding Place, The Wedding Plot, and Home at Night continue the series’ mix of family ties, outdoor danger, and close partnerships between people and dogs.

The dogs do real work here.

Munier has said that the series was inspired by hero dogs she met through Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs, and her love of New England. Her earlier novel Emerald’s Desire follows a young woman searching Ireland for answers about her family and identity. She also wrote Fixing Freddie, a memoir about single motherhood, an unruly beagle, and the chaos of loving a dog who refuses to be fixed.

She lives in New England with her family, several rescue animals, and a cat named Ursula, who reportedly remains unimpressed by the dogs. It sounds like a fitting household for a writer whose stories keep finding room for animals, second chances, and people trying to make a home after life changes course.