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.

When Dogs Fetch Trouble Instead of Triumph by Susan McCormick

LUCY BURDETTE: Today we are delighted to welcome Susan McCormick back to the blog--this time with a topic close to many of our hearts--dogs in books and life!

SUSAN MCCORMICK: I would like to say that dog character Boris the Newfoundland puppy made a  spectacular save in the newest book in my Fog Ladies cozy murder mystery series. Dogs of many breeds are known for their amazing rescue abilities. Certainly the giant dogs, Newfoundlands, St. Bernards, and Mastiffs, with their tremendous courage, strength, and innate skill, are among these heroes. Think Newfoundland Seaman of Lewis and Clark fame, or St. Bernard Barry in the Swiss Alps, or the entire fleet of Newfoundlands assisting the Coast Guard in Northern Italy. My personal giant dog loves—Kitty, Mandy, Earl, Edward, and Albert—were certainly heroic in their loyalty, love, and slobber, and I miss them all greatly. 

In my own life, through my ten-year-old eyes, I witnessed this unwavering protective nature when my baby brother crawled toward the top of our treacherous basement stairs. One of the four of us older kids had dangerously left the door open. Our St. Bernard, Mandy, dashed over and grabbed him by the scruff of the back of his neck, otherwise known as his shirt collar, and pulled him safely away. 

My Newfoundland, Albert, wasn’t much for the water and might not rise to the occasion if called on. The one and only time he entered a lake, with the lure of an entire Pacific Northwest salmon, he gracefully breaststroked to shore and never waded in above his ankles again. Instinct can only go so far.

Albert aside, I set out to find ordinary heroes among the gentle giant set, and because of these breeds’ inherent bravery, immense size, powerful builds, and fearless determination, I expected to find examples of rescue after rescue. This is what I discovered:

190-pound English Mastiff Floyd, pooped out after an exhausting two-mile trek in Utah, lounged peacefully on a gurney hefted by human rescuers who carried the big boy back down the trail.

150-pound Mastiff Mason tumbled down a riverbank in Texas and was hoisted on a stretcher to safety by the fire department.

Missing 165-pound elderly Newfoundland Smitty Bear was found trapped by logs down a steep ravine in his own backyard and was saved by firefighters with a chainsaw and a rescue basket.

120-pound St Bernard Daisy developed leg pain and plopped at the top of a mountain in England, and eight volunteer rescuers carried her down.

My own 180-pound English Mastiff Earl, tied to an enormous compost bin during a friend’s outdoor barbecue, got spooked and raced across the yard, compost bin flying behind like a kite, only to charge off a ledge and land six feet below, buried in decaying organic matter. My husband rescued him, pushing his huge backside up over the edge. Earl was terrified of trash day ever since, with all those lurking compost bins ready to attack him.



Dogs have helped humans for centuries, tirelessly digging out avalanche victims, dragging drowning swimmers to shore, unearthing victims under rubble. So these canine creatures deserve every rescue we can offer.

As for Boris in The Fog Ladies: Date with Death, at the crucial moment when he was needed, called on to spring into action and corner the killer, on the verge of becoming a legendary hero himself, what does he do? He demurs. He diverts toward the cheese platter on the coffee table instead. The rescue is left to the Fog Ladies themselves.

Do you know a dog who has rescued, or who has needed rescuing? 

Short Synopsis of The Fog Ladies: Date with Death, Book 4 in The San Francisco Cozy Murder Mystery series

The Fog Ladies are at it again, spunky senior sleuths and an overstressed young medical resident solving murders from their elegant apartment building in San Francisco. They join a senior dating group, and romantic intrigue soon turns to murder. Graham Parselle, lady killer extraordinaire, plunges off a cliff on a Senior Singles outing. Did one of his dates pitch him over? Or is Olivia Honeycut’s new beau to blame?

Bio

Susan McCormick is an award-winning writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in Washington, DC and San Francisco, where she lived in an elegant apartment building much like the one in the Fog Ladies books. Susan served as a doctor in the US Army for nine years before moving to the Pacific Northwest and civilian practice. In addition to the Fog Ladies series, 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 boys. Though dogless now, Susan loves giant dogs, the bigger and slobberier the better. Visit her at https://susanmccormickbooks.com/

Buy the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop. 

You can follow Susan on Instagram and Facebook.

Dogs are AMAZING: a guest post by Susan McCormick

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Those of you who loved Susan McCormick's last appearance here at JRW will be delighted to know she's back today, with pics of Albert the Newfoundland, some delightful dog facts, and most importantly, the third in her cozy FOG LADIES mysteries. The new book, THE FOG LADIES: IN THE SOUP, tosses the old dears right into it:

 "There was a man in the soup." When the Fog Ladies volunteer at a San Francisco soup kitchen, these spunky elderly friends plus one overworked young doctor-in-training envision washing and chopping and serving. Not murder. Now the soup kitchen is doomed, and the mysteries have just begun. Was the death rooted in a long-ago grudge? Can they save the soup kitchen? Will they find the killer? Could the Fog Ladies, too, end up "in the soup"?

 How can you not love that description? But you'll have to click on of our links to find learn about THE FOG LADIES: IN THE SOUP, because Susan is here to give us what we really want - a chance to win a copy AND talk about dogs!

 

A dog plays a huge role in my new cozy murder mystery, The Fog Ladies: In the Soup, so I am dedicating this guest blog post to dogs. The book also features a cat who spends his time lying in the sun and giving Frances Noonan suspicious looks, so I will not say much more about him. But the dog… Book 1 featured a high-strung Bichon Frise who yapped through the book and ended up saving the day. Book 3 has Boris, a small fluffy black thing, who has digestive issues and a hero’s heart. 

I am a dog person through and through, having loved Earl, an English mastiff, and Edward and Albert, two Newfoundlands. Dogs are amazing. Here are some fun facts.

 

People have 9000 taste buds. Dogs have 1700. This could be why they are satisfied with eating kibble.

 

A dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times better than ours. Trained dogs in Seattle can smell orca scat in the vast waters of the Puget Sound. Alexandra Horowitz, a dog researcher at Barnard, says people might detect a teaspoon of sugar in our cup of coffee, but a dog can detect a teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic-sized swimming pools. This allows them to detect changes in our hormones to know when we are happy or sad and to detect changes in our body’s chemistry in the form of volatile organic compounds to warn us about low blood sugar or lung cancer or bladder cancer.

 

As far as sight, People have more color detecting cells (cones), but a dog has more light sensitive cells (rods) and a larger pupil to let in more light, so dogs see much better in the dark than people. Rods also detect motion, so dogs see tiny movements better.

 

In addition, like many animals, dogs have a layer of tissue behind the retina called the tapetum lucidum that reflects light back through the retina like a mirror, doubling the chances of the light hitting the eye’s photoreceptors. This is why a dog’s eyes glow in the dark.

 

Dogs’ guts seem indestructible, until they get a blockage. See my guest blog post last year about “Things MyDog Has Eaten” and all the replies to see just how indestructible.

A dog’s sense of touch is about the same as ours. So keep giving those chest thumps, those ear scritches, those tummy rubs. A dog lives for this.

 

 

 

Dogs have innate abilities, skills they were born with and can’t undo. Root out rats. Herd sheep and children. Chase birds. Retrieve balls, sticks, the occasional picnic basket. 

My dogs, Newfoundlands, are ideally suited for water rescue: they are waterproof, have webbed toes and swim a beautiful breaststroke, have large lungs to aid swimming, and have excess fur on their neck for the drowning victim to grab.

 

 

Dogs are amazing. The Fog Ladies, and Boris the hero-dog, think so, too.

What’s the most amazing thing your dog has done?

 

Susan McCormick is a writer and doctor who lives in Seattle. She graduated from Smith College and George Washington University School of Medicine, with additional medical training in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Susan served as a doctor in the U.S. Army for nine years before moving to the Pacific Northwest. In addition to the Fog Ladies series, she also wrote Granny Can’t Remember Me, a lighthearted picture book about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two sons, and, until recently, her giant Newfoundland dog, Albert. You can find her on Instagram (with yes, more Albert pics) follow her on Twitter at @smccormickbooks and friend her on Facebook.