books

Urban Dog by Will Cohu

I haven’t read Urban Dog, but whenever I used to run into the owner of two Cairns in my old neighbourhood, he’d always recommend it. What’s more, a reader recently sent in a photo of his rescue dog Maggie and wrote, “Unlike Will Cohu’s Parker, she is a country girl preferring farm yard smells, walks along country lanes and visits to our two local market towns of Clitheroe and Skipton.”

Somehow I’ve never associated country girls with black leather loungers, but I guess they’re good camouflage if a country hunter invades your living room.

Maggie the country girl also appreciates leather loungers

Here’s a sample Will Cohu column about Parker going missing from London’s Daily Telegraph. You can also look inside Urban Dog at Amazon.

This is week two of the Scottie News Book Club.

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I was checking out the tweets of various Scottish Terriers on Twitter yesterday when I stumbled across a photo of the book jacket above from @AngusFala. A little research on the author, the late Stuart M. Kaminsky, turned up several interesting facts. Among other things, he wrote more than 50 novels, served as president of the Mystery Writers of America, and inspired Sara Paretsky to dedicate the first novel in her V. I. Warshawski private-eye series to him.

As a mega-fan of the early V.I. books, I’m prepared to put my faith in Paretsky’s dedication. Along with the audio book version of The Fala Factor, which was first published in 1984, there are also several used copies available on Amazon.

Here’s the Library Journal review of the audio book:

The year is 1942, and America is starting to feel the pinch of wartime deprivation. For gumshoe Toby Peters, “doing without” is no big deal; he scrapes by as a private eye by doing the oddest of odd jobs, and he seems to be surrounded by a coterie of curious characters. This time, it’s none other than Eleanor Roosevelt. The First Lady is convinced that the president’s little dog, Fala, has been kidnapped and seeks the aid of Toby to track down the real First Dog. The fun begins: Toby finds himself uncovering a plot to overthrow the government by a crackpot political party known as the New Whigs, dodging whacks from a cop who dislikes him intensely, and being framed for a murder he can’t prove he didn’t commit. As usual, reader Tom Parker gives all characters distinctive low-life voices (except for Eleanor, of course), and his vocal gymnastics adds immensely to the overall enjoyment of another Peters adventure.

If you’ve read the book, feel free to add your opinion in the comments.

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Wild Times at the Bed and Biscuit, the second children’s book in an expanding series, features a Scottish Terrier puppy who needs to be trained. Good luck with that, everybody.

Here’s the plot summary:

Ever since Grampa Bender opened his doors (and veterinary skills) to a despondent Canada goose, a cranky muskrat, and two tiny but rebellious fox kits, his animal boarding house has been turned upside down. Luckily, Ernest the mini-pig is on hand to marshal the other animals into being good hosts — but since wild things are, well, wild by nature, it has been trickier than he imagined. Plus Ernest is trying to train Sir Walter, the Scottish terrier puppy who is the newest addition to the family. But what if Sir Walter doesn’t want to be told what to do and decides that running wild like a fox sounds like lots of fun?

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A reader writes:
I am Gary Mason, former owned person of Kramer, The Naughty Scottie and Chessie, his rescue companion. Sadly, they are both gone now…

In any case, having retired, and being in the process of clearing out many things, I have made a list of Scottish Terrier books that I would like to sell.

The books are available as priced, or $60 for the lot, plus shipping.

The Official Book of the Scottish Terrier
Muriel P. Lee
STCA
1994
$8

The New Complete Scottish Terrier 2nd Ed.
John T. Marvin
1982
Howell Book House
$11

The New Scottish Terrier
Cindy Cooke
1996 (autographed)
Howell Book House
$25

The Scottish Terrier Club of America Handbook
STCA
1991
STCA
$10

The New Terrier Handbook
Kerry Kern
1988
Barron’s Educational Services
$2

A Guide To Grooming The Scottish Terrier
Merle Taylor
1985
STCA
$5

Clarification And Amplification of the Scottish Terrier Standard
STCA
1980
STCA
$2

Mother Knows Best – The Natural Way to Train Your Dog
Carol Lea Benjamin
1985
Macmillan
$5

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f_ssvandine, originally uploaded by ricksoloway.

I’m a big mystery fan but don’t recall ever hearing of S.S. Van Dine although Philo Vance does ring a bell. But enough about me, here’s some background on the Scottish Terrier-owning author:

He thoroughly enjoyed identifying with his character, the independently wealthy and cultured Philo Vance, to the extent that he quickly began to live like him. Wright partied lavishly and took on eccentric hobbies— owning a Scottish Terrier kennel and breeding exotic fish— and entertained lavishly, falling into a pattern of dangerously outspending his large income. By 1934, with the nation gripped in the Great Depression, literary tastes were turning away from Wright’s aesthetic writing style, favoring grittier hard-boiled realism (a coincidental argument could be made cinematically, for the quality of Wright’s film adaptations dropped precipitously after The Kennel Murder Case (1933), easily considered the best of the series), but he had created a lifestyle he was loathe to change. In any case, by the mid-1930s his popularity had waned considerably and Wright hadn’t or couldn’t adjust to the public’s changing literary taste.

More on Amazon.com.

Update: A reader writes:

I read how thrilled you were to discover the book,
THE KENNEL MURDER CASE.

However, you will be even more thrilled to learn
that it was made into a film, starring William Powell -
by Warners Bros, 1933.

I’ve seen it many times on television over the years.
In one of the opening scenes – with a row of wooden
kennel boxes all lined up – you see all of the Scotties.

More information from knowledgeable readers in the comments.

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Earlier this month, we reported on a naughty Swedish pinup Scottie site. Well, today we bring news of Max, a Georgian Scottish Terrier who provided the inspiration for the main canine character in a special biblical tale, The Ark, the Reed and the Fire Cloud. The plot is complicated, as this review at HomeSchoolBlogger.com attests:

Max is a Scottish terrier who lives a quiet and peaceful life in the glen, but one day he hears the voice of the Maker speaking through a mysterious humming of the reeds telling him to follow the fire cloud. On the way, he meets Al, an Irish cat, and Kate, a West Highland terrier from another part of Scotland, both of whom have also heard the voice of the Maker. After they cross the English Channel, they meet up with Liz, a French cat, and several other animals who are following the fire cloud too, while animals from all over the world have been called as well. The fire cloud leads every one of them to a place in the Middle East where a man named Noah is building a big boat.

Is it just me or does this sound like something Oprah could get into? Can’t you just picture Max jumping on the couch?

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