The Challenges of Incorporating a K-9 Into a Mystery
I’ve been a K-9 handler for a private narcotics dog company called Sherlock Hounds Detection Caines since 2005. As I wrote my first book, Chasing Justice, and my second book in the series, Hunting the Truth, I knew I wanted to make the K-9 character and the dog work a major piece of the story. I am in awe of a dog’s ability to help solve crimes, not only in fiction, but also in real life. I thought as a handler that it would be easy, but I soon discovered that creating suspense and incorporating K-9 work into a mystery was a challenge.
This was mainly because I wanted to keep the K-9 work realistic. That meant that my fictional K-9, Juniper, needed to be a breed commonly used for law enforcement. I chose a Belgian Malinois because they do their jobs well and are very protective of their handlers. The decision to partner my main character, Maya Thompson, with a Malinois was straightforward, but then came incorporating the K-9 work into the story.
Many law enforcement K-9s are trained to find narcotics, track, apprehend, and find evidence. There are other jobs for K-9s in law enforcement such as bomb detection, but for my series, I decided Juniper would be a typical patrol dog. I found as I wrote that I had to think about each scene and how Juniper could help Maya. On the flipside, characters must face conflicts—even K-9 characters.
My books are set in the Colorado mountains where one of the real-life challenges is the weather. Temperature, humidity, wind and terrain can all affect a scent. If I wanted to make it easy on Juniper to track or find narcotics, I could make the weather an enjoyable day with little wind and some humidity. If wanted to make a track difficult, then I could make the weather windy, cold, or hot and keep the humidity low. I’ve enjoyed playing with different scenarios.
As I outline, I like to think about how Juniper can help in each scene. At times, this can be difficult. I don’t want there to always be drugs. Or to have Juniper track a criminal and easily find them. So along with weather, I play with the factor that there’s a human at one end of the leash and we can make mistakes.
I enjoyed writing and showing Maya and Juniper bonding as well as Maya learning to trust her dog. Juniper is a typical Malinois, smart, playful, and extremely high energy. She likes to test Maya and see what she can get away with.
Incorporating all of this into the storyline along with plotting out a mystery, what evidence Maya and Juniper might find and even creating conflicts like losing a human track has been fun but challenging. I’ve enjoyed learning more about K-9s and bringing these amazing dogs to life in my series.
So now I’m curious, do you love reading about K-9s, seeing how they can help solve crimes and learning about their jobs through fiction?
A National Forest K-9 Mystery, Book 2
“Hide, Maya. Don’t let the bad people find you.”
Those are the last words Forest Service law enforcement officer and K-9 handler Maya Thompson ever heard her mother say.
Returning to the Colorado mountains, ex-soldier Maya is no longer a scared little girl. She’s here to investigate her mother’s cold case, but fear creeps in when it comes to her personal life—things are getting serious with sheriff deputy Josh Colten.
After new DNA evidence surfaces, both her beloved grandfather and Josh warn her away from the case, suspecting that she could be the next victim. But Maya doesn’t listen.
Instead, Maya and her K-9 partner, Juniper, track a suspect deep into the forest and directly into grave danger…
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