The Scent of Murder by Kylie Logan
At the end of this book I felt this book was a bit more like a cozy mystery than anything else. The main character, Jasmine “Jazz” Ramsey is training Luther for his owner before Luther is to be tested and certified to be a Human Remains Detection (HRD) search and rescue dog. Stumbling upon a corpse at the beginning of the book is the introduction to Jazz, Luther and one-time-lover homicide detective Nick Kolesov. The blurb/synopsis of the book lays the groundwork and quite a bit of the backstory for this book and the characters within it.
To me Jazz felt a bit lost and I am not sure if that is due to the death of her father, the loss of Nick as her significant other or something else. I hope to learn more about what motivates Jazz in future books of the series. Nick was someone I could understand as he seemed to be dedicated to his work and because he seemed to care for Jazz. I sometimes wondered if Jazz was into finding out who killed Florie because she was at loose ends and needed a purpose or if she is in fact nosy and likes to solve puzzles.
I enjoyed following the leads that finally revealed who killed Florie. The supporting characters were interesting and no doubt will pop up in future books. I enjoyed the way the book was plotted and written and hope that Jazz’s personality will emerge more in the future.
* the dogs – when they appeared
* the puzzle pieces that at first didn’t seem to have any reason being there and then later made so much sense
* Nick – he seemed a level-headed and nice guy
* The information about location
* Finding out that my first thoughts about some “bad” people were unfounded
* Not realizing right away who the murderer was
* Some of Jazz’s less than polite ways of dealing with people she was questioning
* Not finding out what happened to break Nick and Jazz up – was it volatile or just a slow moving away from one another
* Not truly understanding what motivated Jazz
Did I enjoy reading this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Yes
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
First in a new series from national bestselling author Kylie Logan, The Scent of Murder is a riveting mystery following Jazz Ramsey as she trains cadaver dogs.
The way Jazz Ramsey figures it, life is pretty good. She’s thirty-five years old and owns her own home in one of Cleveland’s most diverse, artsy, and interesting neighborhoods. She has a job she likes as an administrative assistant at an all-girls school, and a volunteer interest she’s passionate about—Jazz is a cadaver dog handler.
Jazz is working with Luther, a cadaver dog in training. Luther is still learning cadaver work, so Jazz is putting him through his paces at an abandoned building that will soon be turned into pricey condos. When Luther signals a find, Jazz is stunned to see the body of a young woman who is dressed in black and wearing the kind of make-up and jewelry that Jazz used to see on the Goth kids back in high school.
She’s even more shocked when she realizes that beneath the tattoos and the piercings and all that pale make up is a familiar face.
The lead detective on the case is an old lover, and the murdered woman is an old student. Jazz finds herself sucked into the case, obsessed with learning the truth.
It had rained that after noon and the sidewalks were still wet. When the last of the eve ning light hit them, the slate squares reflected Jazz Ramsey’s neighborhood— streetlights, and the neon signs that flashed from the win dows of the trendy pubs, and a watery rendering of St. John Cantius church, an urban Monet masterpiece, its tan brick walls and bell tower blurred.
Even though it was officially spring, the wind off Lake Erie was wicked. Jazz bundled her shoulder- length brown hair into a loose ponytail and pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt, then hunched further into her North Face jacket. She stopped at a corner, waiting for the light to change, and was pleased when Luther sat down at her side even without a command.
“Good dog,” she was sure to tell him at the same time she breathed in the combined smell of damp earth and the discarded bag from Taco Bell crumpled near the curb.
To Luther’s credit, he ignored what ever bits and bites of Mexican cuisine might still be in the bag. But then, he’d been trained to follow diff er ent scents. When the light changed, he trotted along when Jazz crossed the street, his pace as brisk as hers, and the way he pricked his ears and cocked his head, she knew he sensed the exhilaration that vibrated from her hand through his leash. Luther knew it was almost time to get down to business.
Here, College Avenue started its downhill trek into the Cleveland Flats, the city’s once- booming industrial heart. These days, Clevelanders were more likely to work in health care or IT than in foundries and factories, but one hundred years ago, this was the route thousands of workers took each day from their homes in blue- collar Tremont—it was simply called the South Side then—to the fiery furnaces that produced Amer i ca’s steel.
“ We’re not going far,” Jazz assured Luther at the same time she noticed the couple who stumbled out of the Tree house just up ahead made sure to give the massive German shepherd a wide berth. “Just over here,” she told him once they’d passed the open door to the bar and the blaring music that seeped onto the street wasn’t quite so loud. “Over to the new condos.”
They stopped outside a sturdy brick building nearly ninety years old with solid walls and a slate roof. By the end of summer, Jazz imagined there would be gleaming glass in the window frames where there was plywood now, and win dow boxes, too, no doubt, and cars parked outside that reflected the status- conscious success of the young professionals she’d heard were already lined up to buy.
Tonight the building was empty and dark and she had it all to herself.
It was the perfect place to put Luther through his paces.
Still hanging on to the dog’s leash with one hand, Jazz fished the key from her pocket with the other and silently thanked Ken Zelinsky, the site supervisor, who’d agreed to give her an hour’s time inside the building.
It wasn’t easy to find urban training sites for a human remains detection dog.
She swung open the door and slanted Luther a look.
Luther sat, his tail thumping out a rhythm of excitement on the front stoop, and before she unhooked his leash, Jazz did a quick run- through of what she’d learned from his owner. Luther was a little over two years old, good- natured. He could be as playful as any pup, but he had a serious side, too. Like now, when he had to work.
“He’s a smart dog,” Greg Johnson had insisted when he begged Jazz to help with the final stages of Luther’s training. “He just needs some reinforcement from a really good handler. That’s you, Jazz.”
Or at least it used to be.
These days, Jazz was feeling a little rusty. She was out of practice, not in the mood. It was one of the reasons that, after hemming and hawing and finding excuse after excuse, she’d fi nally agreed to Greg’s request. She needed to shake herself out of her funk, and to her way of thinking, there was no better way to do that than with a dog.
She stepped into the long, narrow entry way of the building with its rows of broken mailboxes along one wall, and shut the front door behind her. The eerie quiet of years of neglect closed around her along with the smell of dampness and decay, rotted wiring and musty tiles carried by an errant breeze. Feeling her way, she unsnapped the leash from Luther’s collar and gave him the command she’d devised for all the dogs she worked with because it was less ghoulish than saying “Find the dead guy!”
“Find Henry!” she told him, and she stepped back and out of Luther’s way.
Like all HRD dogs, Luther was that rare combination— independent enough to go off on his own and loyal enough to owner and handler to need praise. But he didn’t know Jazz well, and smart dog that he was, he wanted to be certain. He glanced over his shoulder at her.
“You know what to do, Luther. You don’t need Greg here to tell you.” She swept a hand along her side. “Find Henry!”
In fact, what Jazz hoped the dog would do was clear both the first and second floors in rec ord time and head up to the third floor where that after noon she’d hidden a human tooth (a donation from her mother, Claire, who, at the age of fifty- two, had deci ded she wanted the kind of sparkling smile she’d seen on so many models and had begun to see an orthodontist). Human teeth contained enough scent to attract a properly trained dog’s attention. If Luther was on his game— and she hoped he was because she hated the thought of telling Greg his dog wasn’t ready for the grueling volunteer work done by dogs and handlers—he would locate the tooth, signal by barking three times, and chomp on the treat she would use as a reward while she secured the scene and made a simulated call to the cops, just as she would do if they made a real find.
“You gonna get a move on or what?” she asked Luther, her voice falling flat against the pitted plaster. “Find Henry!”
In a flash of black and sable, the dog took off down the darkened hallway.
After nearly ten years training and handling cadaver dogs, Jazz knew the ropes. She couldn’t give Luther a hint about where to go or what he was looking for so she kept back, letting him work, refusing to influence him by her demeanor or her movements. She heard his claws scramble on the tile floor somewhere in the dark up ahead, flicked on her high- powered flashlight, and followed.
Some dogs, like pointers, are air sniffers. Some, like bloodhounds, keep their noses to the ground. No matter their breed, cadaver dogs, by virtue of their work, have to be proficient at both. They are trained as trailing dogs to pick up the scent that has fallen from decomposing bodies onto the ground, and as air- scenting dogs as well, so they can detect any smell of decomposition that’s carried on the breeze. By the time she located him in a back room of what had once been a four- room working- class apartment, Luther was hard at work.
His eyes focused and every inch of his muscular body at the ready, he drew in a breath then hurried back and forth, side to side, through what had once been a kitchen, in an attempt to catch the strongest scent.
Not here. On the third floor.
Jazz knew better than to say it. Part of an HRD dog’s gift was to eliminate one area so dog and handler could move on to the next. Luther was doing his job, and he was doing it well. She had to remember to compliment Greg on his training methods.
Nose to the floor, his ears pricked, Luther cleared the kitchen and headed into the back bedrooms. Jazz kicked a piece of fallen tile out of the way, but she kept her place. She would wait quietly until the dog emerged from the back rooms and when he headed out into the hallway, she would follow.
At least that was her plan.
So maybe you already know that I'm not just Kylie Logan, I'm also Casey Daniels and a few other writers, too. What's it like to have multiple personalities and the pen names to go with them? Well, I was once lucky enough to interview mystery great Elizabeth Peters for an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She writes under more than one name, too, and she described the experience perfectly, “If you're only one person,” she said, “you're boring!”
And I guess I'd add to that—if you only write one mystery series, you're boring, too! Or maybe you're just not getting visited as often by the Idea Fairy. The only way to keep that particular critter quiet is to follow where those ideas lead and to date, they've led me to write three different mystery series under the Kylie name.
So who is Kylie? I'm a fulltime writer who has loved mysteries since I was a kid. My dad was a Cleveland Police detective, and he introduced me to Sherlock Holmes stories. He also gave me my first investigating experiences when on his days off, we'd pile into the car and hit the streets to look for stolen cars. When he retired from the force, Dad became the head of security for the Cleveland Public Library.
Crooks and books! I guess I come by my love for mysteries honestly.
I have a degree in English, experience as a journalist and writing teacher, and lots of ideas about interesting ways to kill people. This makes me an excellent guest as cocktail parties, but I've noticed that the hostess doesn't always trust me near the food. Could that have something to do with the book on poisons sticking out of my purse?
I began my career writing historical romance and my book “Devil's Diamond” was nominated for a RITA award as historical of the year by Romance Writers of America. I've also written contemporary romance, young adult horror (as Zoe Daniels and Connie Laux), and one children's book, “Fright Knight,” in the RL Stine's Ghosts of Fear Street series. If you click on the “AKA” button at the top of the page, you'll see all my pen names.
I enjoy weaving and knitting, exploring old cemeteries, and I am a beekeeper. I can't pass up an antique shop (there might be buttons in there!). I can't put down a classic book (even if I already know the story!). And I can't say no to a good bowl of chili. Lucky for me, my husband is the world's greatest chili maker.
When I'm not writing, I'm usually with my family and our two dogs, Ernie, an adorable Airedale, and Oscar, a Jack Russell rescue who came for a short-term stay and ten years later, is still here. Those of you who have ever lived with/met/had dealings with a Russell will certainly understand how knowing him has increased my propensity for murder.
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