THE REAL JULIET

In the current WIP, tentatively entitled "The Deadly Dog Show", Roger and Suzanne, with a lot of help from their Nanny Bruce and Roger's new partner in his detective agency, Vincent Romero, go undercover to investigate irregularities allegedly occurring at a series of major dog shows in California. As part of their cover identities they borrow a dog for Bruce to train and show, called Juliet in the novel. The fictitious Juliet is modeled very closely after our Jolie, AKC Grand Champion Von Der Nacht's Classic Beaujolais, JH, SH, especially when her behavior and personality are being described. To avoid concerns about quarantine regulations and the potential adverse effects of hot, humid weather on the dogs during the shows, this novel is set mainly in California rather than in our more usual locales in the Southern Cone of South America.

Jolie has spent most of her life as a member of a family dog pack, the first three years with just Mom, Vinia, and the second three years with Vinia and Jolie's daughter, Schone. Jolie deferred to Vinia until she had her first litter of puppies, but is probably the dominant bitch in a very mellow pack these days, at least in some ways. For example, she gets to go out of the door first when the pack heads for the back yard. She loves to give big slurpy kisses to humans, including strangers if they have a positive attitude. Like all three of our dogs, and like Juliet, she is a superb athlete in the field and in the back yard.

This book has its origins in Elaine's wanting to see one of these novels having a dog-based theme, especially if it could capture some of her interests in German Shorthaired Pointers and dog shows.  Throw in a badly concealed version of one of our dogs and she seems to be happy, pending some heavy editing still to be done.  Stay tuned to this blog, and hopefully we'll be announcing this book's publication some time this Spring season.