Coffee with a canine: Joanna Slan & Rafferty

The current featured couple at Coffee with a Canine: Joanna Slan and Rafferty.

Slan, on how Rafferty joined her household:

At the calf. Seriously, his original owner left him alone outside in a cage so long that the fur wrapped around his right rear leg, cut off the circulation, and the leg had to be amputated. So Raffie sticks to me like Velcro. He even walks with his nose between my calves as I walk. He's getting a lot more secure as the years go on, but if I've been gone on book tour, he's my Siamese twin for weeks.

Oh! You mean how did we "adopt" Rafferty! Our first Bichon, Kevin, was dying of cancer. I couldn't handle it, hearing Kevin cough and seeing him grow weaker and weaker, so I told my husband I wanted another dog. I felt that giving a rescue dog a home would distract me. We filled out the "emergency needs" paperwork and Small Paws, the rescue group, called us over the holidays. My son thought a three-legged dog would be "pimping." (Ahem. At the time, Michael was 15, and everything was either "pimping" or boring.) My husband wanted a younger dog. We had to have a male because...[read on]

Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of Paper, Scissors, Death, an Agatha-nominee for Best First Novel, and Book #1 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. Paper, Scissors, Death is followed by Cut, Crop & Die, Book #2 in the series, and Photo, Snap, Shot, which was published in May 2010.

About Photo, Snap, Shot, #3 in the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series:

Old money and tradition are the hallmarks of the St. Louis prep school that Kiki's daughter, Anya, attends. But the elite academy is stamped with scandal when Anya finds the dead body of teacher Sissy Gilchrist in its elegant theatre...and Anya might have seen the killer, too. Pegged as a dangerous flirt and a lousy teacher, Sissy would've made everyone's "least popular" scrapbook page. Was her mixed-race romance the ugly reason for her murder? Or was an ex-lover jealous enough to kill? Fearing Anya is in danger, Kiki sifts through the school community's many shocking secrets to pin down the murderer--and meets with death threats and deep-seated prejudice.

Publishers Weekly calls Photo, Snap, Shot "diverting" and says the book is "a cut above the usual craft-themed cozy."

Learn more about the author and her work at Joanna Slan's website and blog.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Joanna Slan and Rafferty.

--Marshal Zeringue