What makes for a great pet mystery? Severn House's Kate Lyall Grant knows. The publisher has three canine mysteries coming out over the next few months: Kathleen Delaney’s Purebred Dead (Aug.), Annie Dalton’s The White Shepherd (Oct.), and Shannon Esposito’s Faux Pas (Dec.). We spoke with Kate about why pooches work so well in detective stories and what dog owners can learn from dog mysteries.
Severn has three dog mysteries coming out before the end of the year—is that a coincidence?
Not a coincidence, no: we already had a couple of excellent canine mystery writers on our list—Lyndon Stacey, with her Daniel Whelan series, and Susan Conant, with Brute Strength, for example—and were delighted with the response they were getting from the American library market in particular, so last year we made the decision to establish a dedicated dog and cat mystery list, and we have been actively approaching writers and agents seeking good dog mysteries since then. According to statistics, there are more than 43 million dog owners in the U.S., so that’s a huge potential readership to be tapped into.
What do you like most about publishing these kinds of books?
As an avid dog lover myself and proud owner of a mischievous Patterdale terrier named Jasper, I love reading mysteries involving our canine companions, whether they’re narrated from the dog’s or the owner’s point of view. I find that with each new mystery, the author provides a fascinating new insight into canine behavior, which I can relate to with my own relationship with Jasper.
What is it about pet mysteries, and dog mysteries in particular, that continues to captivate fans?
Dogs, with their natural sixth sense or intuitiveness, keen sense of smell, excellent hearing, avid curiosity, and dogged persistence, make for excellent detective protagonists or sidekicks. I think writers in this genre are particularly adept at finding innovative ways to involve their canine heroes and heroines in the intricacies of the plot, and it’s always immensely satisfying to see how the dog—or, indeed, cat—in question plays its part in solving the mystery.
Are animal themes a longtime staple of the cozy subgenre?
It’s a relatively recent phenomenon, I believe. We don’t actually have an animal cozy tradition in the U.K., as there is in the U.S. Although, being a dog-loving nation, I’m quite sure there is a ready market in Britain, which we will be seeking to tap into with our new list.
The first time I became aware of the genre, and its immense popularity in the U.S., was when Simon & Schuster U.K.—where I used to work—published Spencer Quinn’s Chet & Bernie series. At the time we found U.K. booksellers surprisingly resistant to the genre, but I hope that will change.
All three of the forthcoming Severn books are launching new series. Esposito’s Faux Pas is set in Florida and follows canine yoga instructor Elle Pressley. How would you classify Elle as a heroine?
Outspoken and feisty, yet inwardly vulnerable. Elle runs Moon Bay’s Pampered Pet Spa & Resort and has an occasionally jaundiced view of her clients—the human, not the canine, variety. I think readers will quickly warm to Esposito’s uniquely quirky brand of humor and will, I hope, find this fresh and original new series a great deal of fun.
In Delaney’s Purebred Dead, we find ourselves in smalltown California with Mary McGill, who actually doesn’t know all that much about pets. Nonetheless, she’s at the center of a murder mystery in which the only witness, so to speak, is a puppy.
Yes, Mary McGill, a retired schoolteacher, is initially reluctant to take in orphaned cocker spaniel Millie, whose owner has been murdered. But what will appeal to pet mystery fans, I think, is the way in which, over the course of the novel, Millie, with her steadfast devotion and winning ways, gradually melts Mary’s heart. By the end, Mary has learned an enormous amount about what it means to care for a dog—and about the immense rewards of dog ownership.
The White Shepherd is quite a shift of scenery: it’s set in Oxford and follows Anna Hopkins, who, along with her white German shepherd, Bonnie, has a penchant for stumbling across dead bodies. Dalton has been shortlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal for her children’s books; how do you think the book is informed by her background writing YA?
Having spent three years as writer in residence at one of Her Majesty’s prisons, Dalton has long harbored an ambition to write an adult crime novel. In encouraging her to write for our new dog mystery list, we were delighted to offer her the opportunity to do just that. Annie tells me that she has found writing an adult murder mystery an “interesting, occasionally stormy learning curve” but noted that it has “definitely been fun.” The result, I think, is an intriguing and wholly satisfying read, crammed full of colorful characters and unexpected twists and turns, and set against a gorgeously realized Oxford backdrop.
These books aside, what are some of your favorite pet mysteries?
My favorite pet mystery of all time has to be James Herbert’s Fluke, which was published back in 1978. An intriguing departure for Herbert, a bestselling British horror writer, Fluke is the story of a man who is reincarnated as a dog and has only hazy memories of his time as a man. During the course of the novel, he has to piece together the clues to find out who he was before and how he came to be a dog, and he has to track down his human family. Funny, witty and sad, with a real twist in the tale, the novel really gets inside the mind of a dog. It’s so different from any of his other novels, but I think it’s his best.
