A day in my life?

Well, that all depends.

On weekdays, you’ll find me behind my desk at St. Catherine’s Preparatory Academy in Cleveland, Ohio. I’m the administrative assistant at the school and I work alongside Sr. Eileen Flannery, the mover and shaker who established St. Catherine’s fifteen years ago and has made it into the most prestigious girls’ school in the city. It’s a challenging job, and it’s different every day. I love it.

But not nearly as much as I love what I do in my free time.

See, a day in my life when I’m not at school is very different thanks to volunteer work I’m passionate about. I train and handle cadaver dogs.

Believe me, I understand the response I get from a lot of people when I tell them. I get the “yuck” factor. But think about it, finding a loved one who is lost and may be dead, getting some closure in what can be an impossibly heartbreaking situation, it’s important. What I do–what thousands of dedicated volunteers do–is help families toward finding some peace.

My first HRD (that’s Human Remains Detection) dog was Manny, a sweet Golden Retriever. Like all HRD dogs, Manny had to be trained to detect the scent of human decomposition both on the ground (for when dead cells are there) and in the air (because sometimes the scent of decomp is on the wind). Manny had to learn to work over all terrains and in all kinds of weather, too.

Since I’m not the type to sit back and put up my feet and read a book or watch TV, HRD work allows me to spend time with dogs and to be outside. The dogs are trained to work both in rural and urban settings and their handlers need to learn to secure a scene (when we do find the deceased) and to follow procedure when calling the police or other first responders.

Unfortunately, my work life and my volunteer life don’t always stay as far apart as I’d like them to. Just recently while training a dog, he signaled a find and I discovered the body of Florie Allen, a recent St. Catherine’s graduate.

Of course I called the police and that’s when I found out the lead detective on the case was Nick Kolesov, my former boyfriend.

Like it or not from that moment on, the days of my life changed dramatically. I got sucked into old alliances, snared by long-dead emotions, and yes, obsessed with the case and finding out the truth.

You can read more about Jazz in The Scent of Murder, the first book in the NEW “Jazz Ramsey” traditional mystery series, released May 7, 2019.

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 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.

Purchase Link

# # # # # # # # # # #

About the author
Kylie Logan is the best-selling author of the League of Literary Ladies Mysteries, the Ethnic Eats Mysteries, and dozens of other books. “The Scent of Murder” is her first traditional mystery. It tells the story of Jazz Ramsey, a cadaver dog trainer and handler and is set in Kylie’s hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Kylie also writes the Pepper Martin Mysteries under the name Casey Daniels. A full list of her books can be found at kylielogan.com.

All comments are welcomed.