Patreon Post: Five of my Favourite Canine Mysteries

Since the early days of crime fiction dogs have been a part of the picture, on the page and in the lives of the authors who wrote such works. Some authors had pet dogs such as Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and Georgette Heyer. James Norman, in fact, used his dogs as a means of discouraging dinner guests from returning, by having his pets lick everyone’s dishes clean before putting them back on the shelves (one hopes he washed them properly after his, no doubt, horrified guests left). Not every crime writer has had a harmonious relationship with canines as The Dundee Courier reported in 1952 that Enid Blyton was bitten several times by a dog on a golf course and required surgery afterwards. When it comes to dogs within mystery fiction there are some famous examples from the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Dashiell Hammett (see Asta, Nick and Nora Charles’ schnauzer). But what are my favourite ones? It can be tricky at times to remember things like this, so part of the…