Kathleen Donnelly
Killer Secrets
A small town’s deadly past is exposed in the newest installment of the suspenseful National Forest K-9 series by Kathleen Donnelly.
Update: 10/23/2024
Kathleen Donnelly’s HUNTING THE TRUTH wins a Pencraft award for Best Book 2024! And KILLER SECRETS wins 1st place in the Romantic Suspense category. Congratulations, Kathleen!
DOSSIER: The Dossier has had writers who’ve worked with K-9s before, but you are the first narcotics K-9 handler turned novelist. When did it hit you that what you were doing was the kind of thing you needed to spin into a book? Was there a specific case, event, or something else that gave you that lightbulb moment?
DONNELLY: First, thank you so much for having me as a Dossier guest.
DOSSIER: Absolutely, are you kidding? We love all things dogs here at The Dossier. And great books & authors like you, of course!
Who doesn’t want a dog as a co-worker?
DONNELLY: As far as the dogs, I can’t believe it, but I’ve worked with K-9s for nineteen years. What a fun job! I had the best co-workers. They never complained and always wanted to have fun. Who else can say their co-workers love to chase and squeak toys at work? For many reasons, we have retired the dogs and the company, so now I can say I am a full-time novelist and I look forward to my K-9 work coming out in the written word.
I think there were a couple moments that really made me realize that maybe I should incorporate K-9s into a book. I knew people were fascinated by my job as I always received a lot of questions whenever I told anyone I was a K-9 handler. Well, questions, or someone would take off running—it depended on the person and situation. But in all seriousness, there came a point where it hit me that my dogs and other working dogs helped us solve crimes every day. There are so many numerous types of working dogs, I thought it would be fun to write and bring in whatever type of K-9 I needed. My main K-9 character in the National Forest K-9 series, Juniper, is a dual-purpose Malinois for U.S. Forest Service law enforcement who works alongside her handler, Maya Thompson. Juniper finds narcotics, tracks, apprehends and does evidence searches. For book #3, KILLER SECRETS, I thought it would be fun to bring in another type of working dog, so I incorporated a human remains detection dog into the story. I’m excited to continue to weave different types of working and service dogs into future books.
Doing a job that really matters
DOSSIER: As a dog lover, what hits you first about being part owner in a K-9 company—the mission behind what they’re doing, the handlers they are there to help, or the little puppy you just want to play and jump around with?
DONNELLY: That’s a great question! As I mentioned, I think I have the best co-workers. There’s nothing better than taking your dog to work with you each day. Our private company specialized in working for schools and the dogs were trained to find drugs, alcohol and gunpowder. I certainly had some moments over my career where the impact of what we were doing really hit me. One moment was when a middle school boy came up and thanked me for keeping his school safe. He said he felt better knowing we were there. Then he gave my dog a big hug.
Another time, I had a high school kid tell me that he had spent the summer at a drug rehab. He realized he had a problem when we busted him. He promised me that he would stay clean and we wouldn’t find anything that school year. He kept his promise. I hope he’s continuing to succeed.
Our company was created after the mass shooting at Columbine, so the decision was made to teach our dogs to find gunpowder. One day, I was working in a parking lot and my dog alerted on a vehicle’s front passenger door. Then she trotted back to the trunk of the vehicle and alerted again. In the glove box, we found marijuana and signs that this student was also a dealer. In the trunk we found a sawed-off shotgun. To this day, I believe we helped stop a serious incident from occurring and maybe even saved a life. That is why I did the job. I’m a big believer that if we can change one life, it’s a ripple effect.
And of course, the puppies! Who doesn’t want to play with puppies?!?
Metallica, Reba, Neil Diamond
DOSSIER: When and where do you like to write and what environment works best? Is there music, silence … pups curled up at your feet? (You don’t own a cat, right?)
DONNELLY: I love to write when it’s quiet. I have a challenging time writing in coffee shops or while listening to music. Although, I make a playlist for each of my books and when I’m working out or driving, I’ll often listen to it just to keep the story in my head. I love all genres of music. I have Metallica, Reba, Neil Diamond, Celine Dion and many other artists in my playlists.
I do love writing with my two retired labs—Boomer and Willow. Many people know them from social media and my newsletter. They keep quite busy connecting with readers in their section of the newsletter called “The Lab Report.” Both dogs have also presented K-9 demos to writers at conferences, workshops and meetings. They are quite talented co-authors. Most of the time, I write after I’ve taken them for a walk and they are tuckered out. Otherwise, they are too excited to lay down while I work. Even retired working dogs have high energy!
I don’t currently own a cat, but someday, I would like another one. I do love them. It’s just when you have dogs who love to chase things that squeak, it’s not a good idea to have a cat. My last cat was Clawed Lemeew. I adopted him when the Colorado Avalanche hockey team won the Stanley Cup in 1996, so he was named after one of my favorite players—Claude Lemieux. Down the road, I’m sure I’ll adopt another cat.
DOSSIER: When we’re done here give me your address. I have a cat I’d like to send you. Her name is Pie Hole. You’re gonna love her.
Finding drugs in the forest is a thing
DOSSIER: Your award-winning debut novel, CHASING JUSTICE, has a storyline that sounds awfully similar to some of the same elements of your own life. Were there challenges finding the line between fact and fiction when you wrote that novel, or did striking the right balance come natural to you?
DONNELLY: I didn’t have too hard of a time finding the line between fact and fiction because I wasn’t a law enforcement officer. Sherlock Hounds was a private company and we only worked in schools, private business and a drug and alcohol addiction treatment center. That being said, there were some real life facts that came into the story. In CHASING JUSTICE, there’s a drug war in the National Forest. In real life, many of the US Forest Service officers and their K-9s deal with drug grows—especially marijuana. There are also meth labs and other crimes committed on National Forest land. One challenge I really wanted to portray is the size of a National Forest to the ratio of US Forest Service law enforcement officers. One officer might oversee a million acres. Their K-9s literally become their backup officers. I did a lot of research and was even able to connect with a Forest Service officer and K-9 handler. He answered my questions and helped me figure out how an officer and investigator for the National Forest would work on a case in real life.
Then I had the fun of letting my imagination take over and play with the story. The one thing I wanted to keep accurate was the K-9 work including a working dog’s rules at home. They are not pets and people always seem upset when I tell them that, but the bond between a K-9 and handler is much deeper. I work hard to portray that in my books and show how dogs can be used to help us solve crimes.
Supporting your local business
DOSSIER: Tell us about your journalism degree from Colorado State and how it helped or hindered your eventual writing career? It wasn’t just a hazy memory of Coors Light and CAM the Ram, right?
DONNELLY: Go Rams! And most hazy memories were probably courtesy of Fat Tire. Sorry Coors! But New Belgium is in Fort Collins, so you know, you must help the hometown businesses.
Colorado State is a great university and their journalism program is top notch. I learned so much that has helped my writing career even in fiction writing. CSU made all their journalism majors take one or two PR courses and some marketing classes. That has really helped me out as I reach out to different types of media to promote my books. Having this knowledge has helped me market my books.
I also had a class where we had to take a topic and write a 5,000 word article. Then we had to cut it down to 1,200 words, 500 words and 150 words. The point was to make sure you could hit your word count. We had a deadline for those articles too. I can’t remember how the professor timed it, but it recreated the feeling of what it would be like to be in a newsroom on deadline, getting the article done and turned in on time. This has helped me in a couple ways. When I was querying agents, it seemed like some agents wanted a ten-page synopsis and others wanted five-pages and then there were the agents who only wanted one-pagers. As I worked on different synopsis lengths, I thanked that professor for that skill.
I also had it ingrained in me that you DO NOT miss a deadline. In print journalism, a missed deadline is a loss of a job and a giant hole in the paper. I take deadlines very seriously. When it comes to fiction publishing, editors are building their schedules and book release dates around manuscript deadlines. If you miss a deadline, it messes up everything. You better have a good reason.
The series goes on!
DOSSIER: Do you have any news or announcement you’d like to disclose in your Dossier?
DONNELLY: I’m thrilled that I will also be continuing the National Forest K-9 series. Books #4 and #5 in that series will be out in January and July of 2026. So, my co-authors and I have plenty of work ahead of us!
Thank you so much again for having me on The Dossier. I had a ton of fun!
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