An Interview with Antony Johnston

Antony Johnston on the central role of canine characters in the Dog Sitter Detective series, writing to put a smile on people’s faces, and being an organized writer.

By Zazie Todd PhD

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In The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead by Antony Johnston, Gwinny Tuffel takes on the job of pet sitting Ace the Border Collie for an aging rock star who lives on a house boat in London—and suddenly turns up dead in the water. Unconvinced by the police’s belief it was suicide, Gwinny begins to investigate with Ace at her side. With an interesting cast of characters and a big mystery to solve, this entertaining and witty cozy crime book will delight dog lovers. 

It’s book 2 in a series and as soon as I finished it, I ordered the first one. Book 3 will be out next year.

You can hear Antony Johnston talk about the book at Bark! Fest, the book festival for animal lovers. He’s on a panel called Canine Crime and Mystery with Antony Johnston, Louisa Scarr, and Philipp Schott DVM.

The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead is available from all good bookstores, including via Bookshop (and Bookshop UK), as well as my Amazon store. It comes out in paperback on August 22nd.

Below, Antony Johnston answers my questions about the book.

Why did you write this book?

Well, it’s the second book in the series, so I wrote it because I was under contract! 

But I began the series in the first place simply to cheer myself up. During the initial Covid lockdown I found myself with unexpected spare time, so to counter all the downbeat gloom I decided to create something that would be fun, and make me smile as I worked on it. A light-hearted cosy mystery sounded just the ticket. I included dogs because I’m a lifelong dog lover, and had just lost two hounds in the space of a year right before lockdown. The Salukis in the first book aren’t exactly like my old Lurchers, but they’re not entirely un-like them, either… and so The Dog Sitter Detective was born.

What is your book about?

The Dog Sitter Detective series stars Guinevere ‘Gwinny’ Tuffel, a semi-retired actress who takes up dog-sitting to make ends meet, while also trying to relaunch her career (despite being in her sixties). But Gwinny keeps stumbling across baffling murders, which only she can solve… with a little help from her friends both canine and human, of course!

The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead sees Gwinny dog-sitting Ace, a restless Border Collie (is there any other kind?) for the ageing rock star Crash Double while he’s abroad on tour. Crash is part of the small houseboat community of Little Venice in the heart of London, so Gwinny agrees to stay on his boat for the duration. But soon, during the annual carnival, Crash’s body turns up floating in the canal – he never made it out of London, much less the country. The police dismiss it as a suicide, but Gwinny suspects foul play and begins to investigate…

What surprised you while you were writing the book?

The biggest surprise with The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead didn’t come about in the writing, but in the research. Once I’d decided to set the book in Little Venice, I took a trip down to London to research the area. I’d heard of it and read about it, but never actually visited before. 

What surprised me was how quiet, tranquil, and isolated the area feels – despite being just a five-minute walk from Paddington, one of London’s busiest railway stations! When you’re in Little Venice itself, even though you’re surrounded by the city, urban life somehow feels very far away. It’s wonderfully peaceful.

Tell me something about your writing process and how it shaped this book.

I’m a big believer in the ‘zero draft’, which is to say that my initial rough draft is very loose and, well… rough! I start at the beginning and race to the end as quickly as possible, even if things in the story change while I’m writing. I’ll make a note, but then I keep pressing on towards the end. Only when I’ve written the final pages do I then go back and revise, because only then do I really know the shape of the story and what the book is about. 

Writing this way means I’m constantly reacting to whatever’s just occurred in the story, often without planning it. This allows unexpected things to happen because they feel inevitable in the moment – including the identity of the killer! I’ve written three Dog Sitter Detective books so far, and in every one I’ve started out with one person in mind, then about three-quarters of the way through changed my mind and made the killer someone else because at that moment it felt right.

I talk a lot more about process and productivity in my non-fiction book The Organised Writer, by the way. If anyone out there is struggling with deadlines, or even just to finish their first novel, the methods I outline in that book can help.

Who will especially enjoy this book?

Dog lovers, for sure; I put a lot of work into representing breeds realistically, and making the dogs integral to the story. Ace is also present throughout The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead – this isn’t one of those books where we meet the dog once or twice but then it’s forgotten about.

Anyone who loves a good murder mystery will enjoy the book too, of course; yes, it’s filled with quirky characters and amusing dogs, but at its heart this book is about solving a very puzzling murder.

And finally, readers who are looking for something funny and heartwarming will like it. Gwinny often pokes her nose in where it doesn’t belong, and rubs people up the wrong way – especially the police! I try to make sure every Dog Sitter Detective book leaves you with a smile on your face.

What are you working on right now? 

I’ve just handed in Can You Solve the Murder; that’s an interactive novel which will be published next year by Transworld. I’m now working on a new graphic novel, and once that’s finished I’ll start writing the fourth Dog Sitter Detective book. As if that wasn’t enough, for the past year I’ve also been writing Altered Alma, an upcoming videogame, and still have many months to go on that project. I like to keep busy!