Kallie E Benjamin, author of Sniffing Out Murder, a Bailey the Bloodhound mystery, is visiting Ascroft, eh? today to tell us a bit about bloodhounds and Bailey, the dog in her mystery series.

Welcome, Kallie. I’ll turn the floor over to you –

Okay, so the title, The Trouble with Bloodhounds, is meant to be an attention grabber by playing on an Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Trouble with Harry. What was wrong with Harry? The main problem was that he was dead, and his body kept popping up in different places (You probably need to see the movie to understand the humor). So, what’s the trouble with bloodhounds? Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with bloodhounds unless you have a bloodhound with a remarkable nose for scents, an instinct for tracking, a stubborn streak, and a penchant for getting their owners in trouble. To understand how a bloodhound can cause trouble, you need to know a bit more about the breed.

Bloodhounds are one of the oldest hound breeds. Legend has it that they were first bred by monks at Saint-Hubert Monastery in Belgium around 1,000 AD for hunting deer, wild boar, and rabbits. It’s believed that the breed’s purity was so valued that only the clergy were allowed to own them, in an effort to ensure their pure bloodline. This led to the name, the blooded hounds, or “hounds of noble ancestry.” There’s no way to confirm if the bloodhounds we recognize today are actual descendants of those pure and noble canines, however what is known for sure is that since the Middle Ages, their keen sense of smell has been used to track and locate missing people, escaped prisoners, and lost pets. They’re able to discern human scent over great distances days after the scent was first made. Combine an extraordinary nose with a tenacious (some might call stubborn) tracking instinct, and you have the modern bloodhound.

Bloodhounds feature prominently in my newest cozy mystery, Sniffing Out Murder. Actually, just one bloodhound, a three-year-old canine named Bailey. Like all bloodhounds, Bailey has an excellent nose and once he’s on a scent trail, he’s stubborn and reluctant to let go. Priscilla Cummings is Bailey’s human. A former schoolteacher, Pris has written a children’s book featuring her canine companion. The Adventures of Bailey the Bloodhound, Pet Detective is a hit, but not even a bestselling book can keep this team out of the doghouse when Pris gets into an argument with Whitney Kelley, a member of the local school board and former high school mean girl and Bailey digs up her body under the begonias in the local park. Some locals are barking up the wrong tree by accusing Pris of the murder. Ultimately, it’s up to Pris and Bailey to catch the killer and figure out Whodunit.

Thank you for sharing this with us, Kallie, and good luck with Sniffing Out Murder, the first book in the Bailey the Bloodhound mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Kallie E Benjamin by visiting the author’s website and. her Facebook, Instagram, Bookbub and Goodreads pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The book is available online at the following retailers: 

Amazon   Apple   Books-A-Million  Barnes and Noble   Bookshop.org   Google Play   Hudson Booksellers    Powells   Target   KOBO   Walmart

About Kallie E Benjamin: Kallie E. Benjamin (Valerie Burns) is the author of the Bailey the Bloodhound Mystery series. The first book, Sniffing Out Murder releases on December 5, 2023. Valerie is an Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist. Writing as V. M. Burns she is the author of the Mystery Bookshop Mystery, Dog Club Mystery, and RJ Franklin Mystery series. Writing as Valerie Burns, she is the author of the Baker Street Mystery series. Valerie is also an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in Northern Georgia with her two poodles.