Book Review of: Scent of the Missing

Love & Partnership with a Search and Rescue Dog

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Reviewer: Mark Lamendola, author of over 6,000 articles.

I've got mixed feelings about this book. It started off well enough, with the picture of that gorgeous blonde on the cover (Puzzle is a good-looking Golden Retriever). And the subject matter is noble. The author isn't an investigative journalist writing about someone else's experiences as the human half of a Search and Rescue (SAR) dog team. She is that half. But there are drawbacks that kept me from giving the book a five-star rating.

The drawbacks:

• Several times in the book, I stumbled over awkward prose.
• The organization of the text confused me several times. I found myself stopping and going back through previously read pages to get my bearings.
• Related to the previous point, the book didn't seem to be driving us toward any particular goal. The author almost had what writers refer to as a "MacGuffin." This is something that Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, is noted for talking about. The MacGuffin drives the plot forward and helps establish the tension that keeps the reader reading. In this case, the MacGuffin could have been the SAR certification but that "plot" just wasn't developed.
• There were abrupt transitions from one "scene" to another. The book even seemed to end abruptly.
• Development of ideas seemed uneven. It's as if the book had been too long and someone randomly edited out parts. Things at the same level of importance should be developed to the same extent, but I didn't get that feeling while reading this book. It seems some trivial things were more developed than some important things.
• A few (very few) of the anecdotes would have been best left out, as they detracted from the momentum of the book (which was weak in this area to begin with).

Some of the pluses:

• She "gets" the language of the animals and tells us what they said. This enriches the book.
• She also understands and can articulate the relationships between Puzzle and the other dogs (and cats) living in her home.
• We see Puzzle as a real personality, with feelings and intelligence of her own. The author could have focused on her own work, with Puzzle as just a machine or accessory. Instead, she did a great job of reading Puzzle's reactions and telling us what those were. The subtitle rang true throughout the book.
• The book was hugely informative. I had no idea just how much SAR teams sacrifice or that they are unpaid volunteers.
• The author, who is a highly accomplished individual, gently drops in facts that help us get to know her better.
• Most of the anecdotes are interesting. Some made my pulse quicken.
• Some of the anecdotes are hilarious. Puzzle's upside down posture on the airplane could have gotten a casual mention and been "so what?" but the way Ms. Charleson told it had me laughing aloud.
• Ms. Charleson described some things so vividly, I felt like I was there.

This book consists of 25 chapters and an epilogue, occupying 288 pages. The book covers the first two years of this amazing partnership.

Ms. Charleson has many talents and excels in many areas. She completed that rigorous SAR training, and, for example, she's a flight instructor who teaches advanced courses. But we can't all be great at everything. She's not a great writer. She is, however, a passable writer with something important to talk about. To me, that beats a great writer with nothing in particular to say.

I've read many dog-related books in my time. This was the first one I've seen on SAR, and it's told from a personal, almost intimate point of view. If you're looking for a flawlessly written work of non-fiction, this isn't it. But if you'd like an insider's view of those brave people and dogs who give so generously to help find missing adults and children, this is it. If you've seen SAR teams and wondered who these people and dogs are, or what it takes to do what they do, this book is for you.

My time spent reading this book was well spent. I think yours will be, too.