Strange Pets: How Frank Became a Lizard - by Susan McCormick

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Susan McCormick and her Fog Ladies Mysteries are fan favorites here at JRW for a good reason. This time around, she's switching into suspense! In The Room at the End of the Hall, a surgeon winds up at the same the hospital where his alcoholic mother is receiving care. When things start to go very wrong, he begins to suspect his mother - or is it that he's the one mentally slipping away?

As usual, Susan leaves it to you, dear readers, to take a look at the book. She's here to talk about something almost as near and dear to our hearts as crime fiction: pets!

 

I love dogs and try to include them wherever I can in my books, big dogs like the Newfoundlands we have loved, little dogs the size of our Newfoundland’s tongue. Cats make good characters, too, and the squint of a cat’s eye or the laziness of his stretch can color a scene without a lot of words. 

 

For my new novel, The Room at the End of the Hall, a mother/son suspenseful mystery, the pet plays a significant part. Originally I wrote about a cat named Frank, and the lonely main character poured out his troubles into Frank’s sympathetic ear. Then I received advice that cats mean cozy, and if I kept the cat, my book would be forever pegged as a cozy mystery. I love cozies; in fact I write an entire cozy series, The Fog Ladies, replete with all the requisite cats and dogs. 

 

But this book is not a cozy. Frank became a tegu lizard, who listens coolly and offers no support. I knew nothing about lizards, did a lot of research, and along the way discovered that people have pets even more strange than a mini T. rex reptile.

 

 

 

Strange pet #1. Zebra. You may have seen the photograph in the paper this summer with a forlorn zebra being airlifted in a sack by a helicopter. His owner had had him less than a day, and the poor zebra, Ed, hightailed it to elsewhere. Ed was found a week later and returned by air, and at writing, his owner was looking for a more suitable home. What do you even feed a zebra? What do you do with him? You can’t ride him. You can’t put him to work pulling a plow. Where are his friends? Zebras travel in packs, and Ed was probably looking for his when he took off.

 

Strange pet #2. Lion (s), Tiger (s). Roar, a film by Tippi Hendren and Noah Marshall, began as an idea about lions moving into a house in Africa and culminated in the couple raising lions and tigers in California to star in the movie. 400-pound Neil the lion roamed the house and slept in their bed, and one photo shows five tigers in the bed as well. All told, 150 untrained lions, tigers, cheetahs, and leopards took part in the filming, which lasted years. Tippi once required 38 stitches to her neck, and her daughter, Melanie Griffith, required 50 stitches to her face and almost lost an eye. Not ideal house pets.

 

Strange pet #3. Bear. I can’t talk about lions and tigers without mentioning bears. I love bears. I could watch bears all day, all week, never leave the bear area. Mark Dumas felt the same but went one step further and brought the POLAR BEAR home, a baby from a mother who neglected her and a zoo that could not keep her. Agee grew into an 800-pound fur ball, grew out of the house and into her own yard, but still swam in the family pool. Mark Dumas was an animal trainer, so the photo with his head in Agee’s mouth is apparently safe.  Agee died this year at age 30.

 

Strange Pet #4. Giant African Millipede. Described by The Spider Shop as “the perfect starter invertebrate,” these creatures are slow, docile, and quiet. They are not cuddly. They require a humid terrarium and millipede mulch and can live ten years. Oh, and when alarmed, they secrete a toxic liquid, HYDROGEN CYANIDE, enough to irritate the skin but not enough to kill. Unless a murder mystery writer decided to collect it…

 

Do you have a strange pet? Or know of one? What’s the strangest pet you’ve seen?

(Note: Some of the pictures are from Pexels. Sadly, no picture of Ed, Neil, or Agee.)

 

 

The Room at the End of the Hall  When rising star surgeon Michael Baker moves home to care for his estranged alcoholic mother, his life falls apart. One patient dies, another lands in the ICU, he loses his chairmanship, and the new chairwoman takes a nasty tumble on the roof. His mother cries murder, but did her alcohol-addled brain suffer one fall too many? Or… is he the cause?

 

Susan McCormick is an award-winning writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She writes a cozy murder mystery series, The Fog Ladies, and she also wrote Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and The Antidote, a middle grade to adult medical fantasy. She is married with two sons, and she loves giant dogs, the bigger and slobberier the better. However, she will not house any lions, tigers, bears, or millipedes. You can find her at her website, friend her on Facebook, and follow her on Instagram.

You can find her books and reviews at Goodreads and at Bookbub.