Susan Conant--It's a Dog's Life

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I did a happy dance a few months back when I saw that Susan Conant had a new mystery featuring Cambridge, Massachusetts dog owner, dog trainer, and dog columnist Holly Winter and her beautiful malamutes, Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy. It's called BRUTE STRENGTH, and first off I have to say it's has the most GORGEOUS cover! If I saw this book on the shelf and had never heard of Susan Conant or Holly Winter, I'd buy it in a second just so I could sit and look at it.

But I've been a fan of Susan's books since the very first entry in the series, A NEW LEASH ON DEATH, and happily, many of the earlier books are now available on Kindle.

In BRUTE STRENGTH, when Dog's Life columnist Holly Winter rejects applicants who want to adopt homeless dogs, she makes a lot of enemies. In dogs Holly trusts, and the dogs she trusts most are her beloved malamutes, Rowdy, Kimi and Sammy. But right now she could use a human friend. Lately, it seems wherever she turns, things go wrong: an anonymous call turns vicious, her husband is keeping secrets, and acquaintances die under mysterious circumstances. Then Holly's own life is threatened. Can the brute strength of Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy protect her?

DEBS: Susan, as much as I love dogs and anything about dogs, I think it's Holly herself who appeals to me the most in your books. Holly is one of the original feisty female sleuths--smart, independent, and wickedly funny. Can you tell us what--or who--was your inspiration for Holly?

SUSAN: When I began writing the first book in the series, A NEW LEASH ON DEATH, I started with the plot. The characters didn't even have names. They were called A, B, C, D, and so forth. Once I had an idea of what was going to happen in the book, I began to worry that my letters of the alphabet wouldn't come to life. At that point, I sat down with a notebook and, in effect, found myself taking dictation from Holly Winter, as I've been doing ever since.

I felt as if Holly had appeared out of nowhere, but it's simply not true. Holly has some obvious and specific sources in my own life. Although my dog mysteries are far less autobiographical than readers sometimes suppose, she and I bear a certain resemblance to each other. In particular, she and I make fools of ourselves over dogs in identical ways. For example, when I was in a phase of always putting water through a Britta filter before I used it to fill the dogs' bowl, I realized that I was filtering the dogs' water but drinking my own straight from the tap. Pure Holly Winter!

Holly is also a composite of many friends and acquaintances of mine who are "real dog people," as it's said. By about the fifth book in the series, GONE TO THE DOGS, I began playing a little game with myself by having Holly define the phrase by example: real are people are people who can go to a party and discuss impacted anal sacs without gagging on their Brie——as real dog people certainly can and do!

So, in preparing to write as Holly, I've become something of an anthropologist of the culture of the dog fancy and dog love. I especially enjoy hearing people, including myself, speak in ways that reflect the unity of people and their dogs. At performance events, it's routine to hear someone waiting for a turn in the ring say,"We're the next dog," and when people discuss breeding programs, they say, "He bred to her" in a way that makes it impossible to tell whether the pronouns refer to human beings or canines. The other day, I heard someone say of a breeder, "She is a working kennel," a statement that might have come out of Holly Winter's mouth. And probably will!

I also want to acknowledge the influence of Nancy Drew, who has inspired almost every American woman writing mysteries today. In admiring Nancy, I learned that a girl could be strong, independent, resourceful, brave, and admirable all at the same time. So, Holly owes something to Nancy. In my series, Nancy Drew grows up and goes nuts about dogs.

DEBS: Oh, I can so see myself giving my dogs water from the Britta filter . . . Um, I have actually done that . . .

When I knew Brute Strength was coming out, I re-read half a dozen of the early books in the series (I'm missing a few in the middle, but only because I made the mistake of loaning out my copies) and although the first book was published in 1990, the early books seemed as fresh as ever. Have you given much thought to the fact that series time doesn't run at the same rate as real time and how to handle that challenge?

SUSAN: If you're asking me to kill off Holly's dogs, the answer is no! Seriously, all of us who write long-running series have to make decisions about real time and series time. If dogs weren't central characters in my series, I'd handle time just as you do. (I'm a fan!) But I can't. In reality, dogs have very short lives. If series time were real time, Holly would now be on her fourth or fifth generation of malamutes. So, my books take place in book time. Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy are immortal, as my readers and I want them to be. I'm sure that my readers don't want to have their attention directed to the dogs' immortality, so I take care not to let my readers down.

DEBS: I absolutely couldn't bear to have anything happen to Rowdy, Kimi, or Sammy, so thanks for the reassurance.

Can you tell us about your first malamute? Who inspired Rowdy? And who are your current dogs?

SUSAN: I grew up with dogs and had loved dogs all my life, but my first malamute, Natasha, was a revelation. At the age of eight weeks, when I brought her home, she promptly taught me that there was more to dogs than I'd ever dreamed. I'd known a lot of dogs, but I'd never known one like this before!

Natasha was my original model for Holly Winter's Rowdy. In my first mystery, A NEW LEASH ON DEATH, Holly walks into her bedroom to discover that Rowdy has removed all of the socks from her sock drawer, has distributed them throughout the room, and is waiting there to observe her reaction. Rowdy is, in effect, conducting an experiment designed to assess Holly's character. That scene is drawn from life. What amazed me when I entered my bedroom to find myself a subject in Natasha's sock experiment was that she had used the distribution of my socks as a means toward an end that had no inherent connection with socks. The point was to size me up! Her aim was practical——to evaluate her bipedal partner——but the way she'd achieved her aim suggested a capacity for abstract thought that I'd never before encountered in a dog.

I was utterly loopy about Natasha, who got me into obedience training and trials. With her, they were indeed trials! But no matter what, I simply worshiped her. A NEW LEASH ON DEATH is really a love story——a story about my great love for Natasha.

Incredibly, at the moment, I'm without a malamute. My Mandy is the first mixed-breed dog I've ever owned. At a guess, she is a malamute x Sheltie cross. Two years ago, my husband and I offered to foster her for malamute rescue. She was eleven years old. Two weeks after she entered our lives, we celebrated our wedding anniversary by adopting her. She will turn fourteen in October. She is a peach.

DEBS: I know you've been busy writing The Gourmet Girl Mysteries with your daughter, Jessica Park. (These are going on my To Read list. If there's anything I like almost as much as dogs, it's food . . .) But are there more Holly Winter Books in the works? (Please say yes!)

SUSAN: Yes! I have reams of scribbled notes for the next Holly Winter book, but I haven't made much progress this summer. I broke my right wrist in early June, and typing was painful. Also, I've been busy preparing electronic editions of two early Holly Winter books, A NEW LEASH ON DEATH and A BITE OF DEATH. With luck, Kindle editions will available soon.

DEBS: As you may have noticed, we have GSDs (German shepherd dogs, for those who are not up on doggy parlance.) So as much as I love the malamutes, I always hope that India, Holly's (hunky) husband Steve's German shepherd, gets a little bigger role. Not that she would outshine the malamutes, of course!

I love this last picture, which you've told me was taken at the Cambridge Armory (with you and Mandy on the left), where Holly's fictional dog club trains. With the focus on dogs, and on Holly as such an appealing heroine, I don't want to miss emphasizing that one of things I've always loved about your books is their strong sense of place. They've made me feel I know Cambridge, street by street, and if I ever get to take a Holly Winter tour, I'll have fun trying to find Holly's fictional house.

And in the meantime, I'm looking forward to the next Holly--and I may have to find my missing volumes . . .

True Crime Scotland Yard Style

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Here at Jungle Red we all write crime fiction, so we are accustomed to imagining and inventing all sorts of corruption and nefarious doings. And because I in particular write contemporary British police procedurals, I've long been aware that things within the Met can be less than peachy.

I've read the autobiographies of a number of recent Scotland Yard commissioners and senior officers, the most interesting among them Brian Paddick's Line of Fire. Paddick, the most senior openly gay officer in the Metropolitan Police, was at the time of his retirement in May 2007 Deputy Assistant Commissioner. Paddick had already had several run-ins with Murdoch's media machine, but when in 2005 his accounting of the Stockwell shooting of Jean Charles de Menzies differed from the official one, it effectively ended his career.

In light of the recent disclosures involving the intertwining of Sir Rupert Murdoch's media empire with the higher levels of the Metropolitan Police, one might be given to some interesting speculation here.

That, of course, is what we writers do. Speculate. I've certainly speculated about corruption in the upper levels of the Met, and I've considered such things as useful plot devices. But I'm just as disillusioned as anyone to find that life has so blatantly imitated art, and to see the reputation of the Met so tarnished.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the commissioner of the Met, has stepped down, leaving the post open.

But it could be that some good things will come of the airing of the Met's dirty laundry. It's possible that the Met might have its first female commissioner. Sara Thornton, chief constable of Thames Valley Police, is the 2-1 favorite for the job.

Yes, trust the Brits. The bookies are laying odds on the appointment.

And Chief Constable Thornton, at least in this photo, looks the tiniest bit like Helen Mirren. That would be one for the books.

So, Jungle Reds and dear readers--anyone want to make a wager?

Those Little Addictions

Deborah Crombie: Don't worry, I'm not talking about Twelve Step stuff
here, but about the little things that creep into our lives. The things we take for granted, then assume we can't do without.

Not that there aren't little addictions that we consciously deem necessary--I confess, mine is tea. I did go without tea once, when I was pregnant with my daughter. I swore I'd never do it again, and I
still stand by my resolution. Well, I probably could write without tea, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. . .

But I recently discovered that something I'd thought a necessity was surprisingly easy to give up--the daily newspaper. I grew up in a household where my parents read both the local paper, the Dallas Morning News, and the Wall Street Journal, so newspapers had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. And I'd subscribed to the Dallas Morning News for, well, most of my adult life. It was such a part of my morning routine: flipping through the sections to find the ones I liked, perusing them over breakfast and then another cup or two of tea.

But the paper got smaller and smaller, the subscription price didn't go down, and I found I was getting most of my news online. So at the beginning of the summer, after a lot of agonizing over the decision, I went cold turkey. No "Just the Sunday edition." No paper, period.

And what I've found is that I don't miss it at all. Not the least little bit. In fact, it's been liberating. I can read a book while I eat my toast. Or listen to a book. Or make notes for my own book. Or--the best thing--stare out the kitchen window at the hummingbirds zipping around the feeder. Quiet time.

I am not advocating or applauding the slow decline of print newspapers, by the way. I am as distressed as anyone over the demise of many of the best book review sections, and perhaps if the DMNs hadn't become a shade of its former self, I'd have found the parting harder. But for me giving up the paper has been a welcome bit of simplification.

What about you, Jungle Reds? Are there any little things that steal your time that you might find you could do without?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: It's hardly original to say that the computer is stealing my time - but that doesn't make it any less true. One thing I've done to fight back is to turn off the sound notifying me that I have a new email. I felt like a complete dope for never having done it before. And I suppose I could live without watching the early rounds of a tennis tournament - do I really need to see Rafa Nadal humiliate some poor guy from Uzbekistan?

What I can't do without are my periodic walks around my garden. A few times a day I feel the need to "walk the back 40" as I refer to it. I prune, I plan, I think, I chill. Then I come back and sometimes check emails.

LUCY BURDETTE: (AKA Roberta) We get the NEW YORK TIMES delivered daily. There are plenty of days that I can't get through all of it, but I nibble on it across the day--a little at breakfast, a little at lunch, and then maybe a bit more while making a cup of coffee. And Sundays, forget about it. I would HATE to give up the real estate and style sections. Not that I'll ever own a place in New York, but I love reading about the hunt for the right apartment. And the food section on Wednesday, of course. No not giving those up Debs!

DEBS: Okay, I have to confess. I do miss the food section. My friend usually saves it for me, but I have about three weeks worth of those I haven't read (maybe partly because it's too hot to even think about cooking here.) And you are talking about The New York Times, which I think would a little harder to part with . . .

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, we do "the back forty" too--every night when we get home from work. Lovely, and now the dahlias are starting. But--my addictions have to do with food, too. And they're like--serial addictions. For awhile, a few years ago, I was craving toasted sesame bagels with strawberry jam. I mean--I loved them, wanted them, had them every day. I could have lived on only that.

Before that, it was-and you can tell it was when I was single--baked potatoes with sour cream and broccoli. Honestly, I would start thinking about it on the subway on the way home from work ,and I just could not wait to have that for dinner. I bet--I had it for a year.

And then, just like the strawberry jam bagels--there comes a moment when I think--ACCK! Never never never again.

And Debs, we've gotta talk. You can't give up the newspaper. Gosh, I really couldn't. If I don't read the papers in the morning, I feel like--I'm missing something. And Sundays? Ritual.

RHYS BOWEN: My kids have always told me that I'm addicted to tea at tea time. Have to have my cup on the dot of 4 p.m. On the beach in Hawaii I'd suddenly leap up and start looking for a tea shop while the kids teased me.

Facebook--I'm on the way to becoming addicted. Project Runway for a while. Now I've taken the twelve step and I'm over that. I wish I had a garden to walk around--I'm on a hill so steep that only the deer can walk without slipping.

I could watch tennis non-stop every day--even Raffa against a guy from Uzbekistan. And I'm thrilled to say I have two days of tennis next year at the Olympics. Yeah!

HALLIE EPHRON: Say it ain't so, Debs - you gave up the NEWSPAPER?! Sure, there are "little things that steal [my] time that [I] might find [I] could do without, but my morning paper isn't one of them. I get up and write; and after a few hours the paper is my reward. The real on paper paper -- reading it online is so not the same experience, don't ask me why.

What I wish I could do without: blow drying my hair.

And I so agree with Ro - the big time sink is the computer -- specifically the Internet. On a good day I disconnect from the network when I start to write.

DEBS: Hallie, there wasn't much left to read in the Dallas Morning News. Funny, I read more than one paper every day obsessively when I'm in the UK. But you are all right about the internet. I think I'm going to have to start going somewhere without wi-fi to write, and turn off my phone. Don't get me wrong, I love my phone, but with smart phones you NEVER get away from it.

Unless, of course, you can go somewhere like the Reading Room in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which is not only my fantasy work space, but a little tease for the upcoming week.

Later this week we have Susan Conant chatting about her new Holly Winter book, Emily Arsenault on In Search of the Rose Notes, and on Friday, Deborah Harkness will be here to tell us some unexpected things about one of this year's publishing sensations, A Discovery of Witches.

So, JR readers, are there things you could give up that would make your lives a wee bit simpler? (And that would not include BOOKS.)