Kaitlyn Dunnett's
Scottie Page
Let me start with a post I wrote for my group blog at
MaineCrimeWriters.com
"Cats,
Dogs, and Dastardly Deeds"
Kaitlyn Dunnett
here, to talk about the ninth Liss MacCrimmon mystery, The Scottie Barked
at Midnight. In some ways, it was a challenge to write this one.
Dilemma: how to add dogs to a series
that already has two cats?
Solution: keep them (mostly) separated.
In The Scottie Barked at Midnight,
on a cold and bleak March evening, Liss MacCrimmon is driving home from a
shopping spree at the outlets in Freeport, Maine when something darts in front
of her car. Afraid that she's hit a dog or a cat, she stops to look for the
animal. What she finds, mercifully uninjured, is a lost and shivering Scottish
terrier. She takes the little dog, a female, to the nearest vet and then agrees
to keep her until the owner is found.
She did not consult her two cats,
Lumpkin and Glenora. Needless to say, neither is
thrilled to have a house guest. Fortunately, the Scottie, Dandy by name, is
soon claimed. Not so fortunately, Dandy was running loose because she was
dognapped, and returning her to her owner leads to Liss's involvement in yet
another murder.
Lumpkin and Glenora
were on the cover of an earlier adventure, Scotched. For The
Scottie Barked at Midnight, it is Dandy in the cover illustration. In
fact, there are two Scotties in the story, Dandy and Dondi,
two-thirds of an act called "Deidre and her Dancing Doggies" that is
primed to win the top prize on a television variety show . . . until someone
does in Deidre.
In need of another dancer to fill in for
the murdered woman, Deidre's daughter taps Liss. She was once a professional
Scottish dancer, after all. How hard can it be for her to learn the steps to
accompany two trained pups? In fact, it is not hard at all. The hard part is
figuring out who killed Deidre and who is behind the dirty tricks haunting the
competition, before that unscrupulous person can knock Liss out of the running,
too.
Above
are the Scotties who inspired Dandy and Dondi, the
two Scottish Terriers who make their first appearance in the ninth Liss
MacCrimmon mystery, The Scottie Barked at
Midnight. They are, clockwise, Doogie, Bentley,
Maggie Rose, and Gracie and they are the companions of Carolyn Grande, the
reader who first suggested to me that Scotties would be a perfect fit for my
Scottish-American heritage themed mystery series.
Cincinnati
Scotty Friends, especially Julie Harrison, have also been supporters of the
appearance of Dandy and Dondi in the series. Shown
above is the committee that organizes their annual conference.
When
The Scottie Barked at Midnight first
came out, I did a mini-blog tour to publicize the book. Most of these talked
about the Scotties. Below are links to some of these posts.
"A
Day in the Life of Dandy the Scottish Terrier" at Dru's Book Musings
"How
to Train Your Scottie to Dance" at Hobby
Reads
"The
Story Behind the Story" at Femmes
Fatales
"One
for the Dogs" at Maine Crime
Writers
"Of
Dogs and Cats" at Jungle
Red Writers
Fast Forward to later books in the Liss MacCrimmon series.
Back
by popular demand, Dandy (or Dondi), now living with
Liss's Aunt Margaret, again took center stage on book covers for the eleventh
and twelfth Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries.
More
than that, they won new fans for the series, including Mark Roberts, whose
excellent map of downtown Moosetookalook can be found elsewhere on this
website. Here is a photo from the wedding of Mark's daughter Sara, where his
Scottie, Carson, came in for his share of attention, too.
After
reading The Scottie Barked at Midnight
and other books in the Liss MacCrimmon series, Monica Collett
sent along these wonderful photos of her Scottie, Jeffrey.