Happy Friday, suspense lovers. Today we welcome back author Kylie Logan, who has released a brand new mystery,
The Secret of Bones. Logan's series involves human remains detection dogs, (HRD) also known as cadaver dogs to help solve crimes. Kylie has gotten up-close and personal with these fascinating dogs and their handlers.
I asked Kylie to tell us about cadaver dogs: Anyone who lives with one knows dogs are amazing. They are companions. They are confidantes. They are sometimes workers and sometimes clowns, and they can be incredibly smart . . . or not so much. They sit quietly at our sides when we read. Or they can romp like toddlers, and sometimes be just as challenging. With boundless energy and noses that can, according to scientists, detect scents 10,000 to 100,000 times better than any human nose can, dogs have become invaluable in police work, sniffing out drugs, bombs, and other contraband, and finding the lost.
But it’s not only the living who sometimes need to be found. That’s where Human Remains Detection (HRD) dogs–often called cadaver dogs--come in, dogs that are specially trained to track only the smell of human decomposition. It’s not a new concept. In fact, the first mention of a dog finding the dead was in Germany in 1809 when a court clerk, frustrated by the lack of evidence in a trial, walked his dog past the suspect’s house. The dog alerted to two bodies buried in a shed and the suspect was convicted. The modern concept of training dogs specifically to detect the scent of human death started in New York in the 1970s.
Today, cadaver dogs assist first responders across the country and are handled by teams of dedicated volunteers. What kind of breeds make good cadaver dogs? It really doesn’t matter. Breed is not nearly as important as drive, intelligence, and ability. HRD dogs are trained to pick up the scent of decomposition as it drifts in the air, so like many hunting dogs, they have to be good air sniffers. But like hounds and other tracking dogs, they also need to track scent on the ground for those times when dead cells are shed and fall to the earth. They need to be smart enough to made decisions and to work on their own, but they also need to be loyal to their handlers and to obey commands. And they need to get used to working in all weather over all terrain, both in rural and urban settings. Death in arid conditions has a different odor than death in humid places, and the dogs need to learn the differences as well as being able to distinguish the scent of death when it comes from both above and below the ground. HRD dogs have found the dead buried as much as 30 feet under ground and some are currently being used to find burials at archaeological sites, including Roman hill forts. To help in finding drowning victims, some dogs are specially trained to detect the scent as it rises into the air from underwater. A few years back, a canoer disappeared in a Canadian lake. Authorities searched for the body for two weeks and found nothing. When they brought in a water-trained HRD dog, the dog located the deceased in fifteen minutes!
For the dogs, the search isn’t as much about finding dead people as it is about the reward they get for work well done. Most handlers have a special toy for the dog and when it does its job–alerts to the presence of death–the dog is allowed to play with the toy. Handlers, too, go through grueling training that includes orienteering and first aid for both people and pups. Like their dogs, they are tested and certified, and they must be fit and willing to work outside in all kinds of weather. They also need to be ready to deal with whatever it is their dogs may find and part of their training includes how to secure a scene, how to make notes on the condition of the body and the area, and of course, how to contact the proper authorities. Dog and handler work as a team and provide invaluable assistance in important work, often giving the family of the missing answers and closure.
Tell us a little about The Secret of Bones: Assembly Day at St. Catherine’s school is always one of the highlights of the year as professional women gather from all around Ohio to talk to the school girls about careers. Administrative assistant, Jazz Ramsey, is involved, too, giving the girls a taste for her passion—cadaver dog training. The girls are impressed, until a dog leads Jazz to a little-used part of the school where she knows she hasn’t hidden a bone. The discovery of a skeleton answers questions about the disappearance of Bernadette Quinn, a teacher who never returned to school after Christmas break three years earlier. But now it appears that Bernadette never left the school at all, and the place where her bones are hidden make it clear—this is murder. Bernadette’s difficult personality means there are a plethora of suspects inside the school and out, and as Jazz gets closer to the truth, she can’t help but wonder if someone is dogging her footsteps.
Here's a little about the author: Kylie Logan is the author of the Jazz Ramsey mystery series. Jazz
trains and handles cadaver dogs in her hometown, Cleveland, Ohio. The second installment in the series is “
The Secrets of Bones.” It follows last year’s “
The Scent of Murder.” The books are published by St. Martin Minotaur. As Kylie Logan, she’s also written light-hearted cozy mysteries including the League of Literary Ladies series, the Button Box series, and the Ethnic Eats mysteries. As Casey Daniels, she’s written the Pepper Martin books. Pepper solves mysteries for the ghosts in the cemetery where she works. Logan has been writing for nearly thirty years and in that time, has published 62 novels. In addition to mysteries, she’s written both historical and contemporary romance, books for young adults, and one children’s book. These days, she likes nothing better than concocting mystery plots filled with eccentric characters and plenty of twists. This fall, writing as Lucy Ness, she’ll premier a new series, the Haunted House Mysteries, which will be published by Penguin/Random House. The first book in that series is “Haunted Homicide” and features a hoity-toity women’s club in an aging mansion...and the ghost of a flapper in an old basement speakeasy. Logan lives near Cleveland with her husband and two dogs. Lucy is a rescue who came to the family through a prison training program. Eliot Ness is a two-year old Airedale who besides being a show dog, has never met anything–food or otherwise–that he doesn’t want to put in his mouth.
To order a copy of
The Secret of Bones, please click on this link:
https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Bones-Mystery-Jazz-Ramsey-ebook/dp/B07Z2LFM12/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WVR9JXMBPYUG&dchild=1&keywords=the+secret+of+bones+by+kylie+logan&qid=1591132042&sprefix=The+Secret+of+Bones%2Caps%2C282&sr=8-1 For a chance to win a print copy of
The Scent of Murder, please lease Kylie a comment to be
entered in the drawing. You MUST leave your email to win. Sorry, US readers only.
