My next interview victim –er, I mean subject—is mystery author Lauren Carr. The thing that struck me most about her interview is how ingrained animals are in her life, and therefore in her books.
Lauren shared a bunch of wonderful pet-related anecdotes that elicited more than one knowing head nod or chuckle from me. Will it be the same for you? Read for yourself and see if you can’t relate to her life with pets.
Courtney Mroch: What kind of things do you write about? (Genre, subject matter, themes, what have you.)
Lauren Carr: I am the author of the Joshua Thornton Mysteries. The first installment in this series, A Small Case of Murder, was named a finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2005. Last June, the second installment, A Reunion to Die For was published by Five Star Mysteries.
CM: What kind of pets do you have? (Or have you had.)
LC: I was a farm girl. I grew up surrounded with pets from dogs to cats to cows to ponies. After my husband and I were married, we adopted a German Shepherd puppy. Within a couple of years, our family grew to three dogs, three cats, and our son Tristan, who is now nine years old.
Nineteen years later, we have Beagle Bailey, a four-year-old beagle-Italian Greyhound mix. He also has fox terrier in him. He only weighs 27 pounds, but thinks he’s 127 pounds. Once when I took him to the vet, he tried to take on a one hundred pound lab-mix. The animal hospital staff had a good laugh about that, as did the lab.
Our Australian Shepherd, Ziggy was acquired during half-time at a football game. A couple of years ago, my son was playing football with the Upward flag-football league. During half-time, a woman with a furry bundle in her arms comes up to him and asks if he would like to hold her puppy. I thought, “What harm can come from holding a puppy?” So, the woman puts the little creature in his arms and his face lights up. Then, she says, “You can keep him. He’s free!” Suddenly, she was gone! That puppy peddler unloaded a whole litter of puppies that way!
Ziggy is just like J.R. Ewing from the television show Dallas. He’s bad to the bone, but he’s so loveable! He’s the dog that is pictured with me on my website.) A couple of weeks ago, I had set up a buffet of appetizers, the center piece being a smoked salmon. Ten minutes later, I heard my husband screaming, “Bad dog! Bad dog!” Ziggy came running into the room and hid behind me. He had jumped up onto the table and pulled the whole smoked salmon down and ate it. Of course, we chewed him out good. Then, ten minutes later, I heard again, “Bad dog! Bad dog!” Ziggy had returned for the cheese and crackers.
When he was four months old, he took up chasing cars. He actually caught a truck by diving under it between the tires, without getting hit. The driver stopped and we found Ziggy right smack in the center underneath it. I had to crawl underneath it to get him out. We have broken him of chasing cars. Now he chases squirrels.
CM: Do animals appear in your work? Are they the focus of any of your stories or the main characters?
LC: My main characters always have pets of some sort. I believe it says something about a person whether they do or don’t have a pet in their life. I find people who have pets to be of a more generous and compassionate nature.
Joshua Thornton’s family has a gigantic Great Dane-Irish Wolfhound named Admiral, which looks like a wire-hair version of Scooby Doo. His late wife took his children to the pound to pick out a puppy and fell in love with one that had gigantic paws. It was only later, after the kids had bonded with him, that a friend told Joshua that the dog was a mixture of the two hugest breeds on Earth.
Like all pets, Admiral has a personality, which contributes to the story. I consider his character as important as Joshua’s children. He begs at dinner time, sneaks up on the furniture when Joshua is not in the room, and, in A Small Case of Murder, he helped his master capture one of the bad guys.
CM: Do you ever use your pets as the basis for any animal characters?
LC: Oh, yes! Admiral is based on a boxer we had when I was growing up. Jinx was like a brother to me. My parents got him when I was only six months old. He died when I was fourteen. Like Admiral, he would sit next to my mother’s chair at the dinner table to wait for any handouts she might give. In the Joshua Thornton mysteries, after the death of the main character’s wife, Admiral moved to Joshua’s end of the table.
Like our Beagle Bailey, Admiral sneaks up on the furniture when he thinks no one is home. After having him for several months, I walked in one morning and caught Bailey climbing up onto the sofa in the living room. Having never seen him even ask to get up on the furniture before that, I shrieked. Bailey jumped up and looked around and when he saw me, his eyes got big. Busted!
My latest book that is now being edited introduces a new character who inherits a dog that I based on Ziggy. In this new mystery, the protagonist has a dog that is so very bad—but extremely loveable. (My editor told me that she wants to take him home with her!)
After our Australian Shepherd caught the truck, we had him evaluated by a dog trainer who told us that his misbehavior is due to his high intelligence. He’s so smart that he gets bored easily. As a result, like a teenager with nothing to do, he goes looking for things to get into, like that smoked salmon!
CM: Do your pets contribute to your work methods and help with the process?
LC: Beagle Bailey likes to think he’s my muse. He is always nearby when I write, whether it be on the futon in my studio, or squeezed in beside me when I write in the recliner next to the fire.
CM: What are you working on now? Any new releases?
LC: I don’t have a release date yet for It’s Murder, My Son, which introduces Mac Faraday, a new detective, who inherits a devilish German Shepherd after his mother passes away.
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Photo credit: Photo provided by Lauren Carr and used with her permission.