Six of the best crime fiction canines

Dick Lochte is an award-winning, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of numerous crime novels, including The Talk Show Murders with Al Roker. He and his wife Jane live in Southern California with their dog Hoagy. Lochte's newest novel, with William M Webster IV, is Rockets' Red Glare.

At The Strand Magazine Lochte tagged six notable crime fiction canines, including:

DAVID HANDLER’S LULU

In his first witty, smoothly constructed mystery involving celebrity ghostwriter Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag, The Man Who Died Laughing, Handler was wise enough to provide his amateur detective with a faithful brown and white basset hound as charming, sophisticated and observant as her master. Hoagy’s career has had its ups and downs. After penning a popular and critically successful first novel, he suffered a writers block severe enough to cause cocaine addiction and the loss of prestige, money, friends and wife. Everything but the loyal Lulu who, with her waspish manner, odd penchant for foul-smelling food and seemingly miraculous manner of sniffing out evil, became a grounding presence for Hoagy. When the former bestseller settles for the inglorious hybrid profession of ghostwriter and amateur detective, Lulu becomes a unique sleuthhound in her own right.

The duo’s current adventure, The Man Who Swore He’d Never Go Home Again, is a series prequel, with freshly successful first novelist Hoagy returning to his small hometown in Connecticut for a funeral. In it we meet his new puppy Lulu and his new girlfriend (and eventual wife and ex-wife) actress Merilee Nash and learn how they all got together. Because of this, it’s a good starting point for the uninitiated, but, though entertaining, it’s not quite as satisfying a crime novel as his Edgar-winning The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald or last year’s elegant The Woman Who Lowered the Boom. That has Hoagy on the cusp of regaining his status as a rockstar novelist and doubly buoyed by the possibility of remarrying Merilee. Happiness at the start of a mystery must of necessity be short-lived and, just a few pages in, Hoagy learns that his editor, Norma Fives, has received letters threatening her life and, by extension, his novel. What can he do but expose the anonymous author of the letters and what can Lulu do but suffer the loss of comfort and a plate of her beloved sardines while helping him on the hunt?

Read about another canine on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue