How to Write About a Detective Who Doesn’t Want to Be Written About

By J. KUSHLEY, Council-Appointed Author |

When the Bellwick Council first contacted me, they said they needed a “civilian collaborator” to help a local detective prepare an official case record for public release.
They didn’t mention the detective was a dog.

Nor did they clarify that said dog would treat the manuscript like an attack on his dignity — and occasionally like something best shredded.

The arrangement, I’m told, is part of a renewed Species License of Conditional Civic Operability.
(A phrase that belongs on a tin of paint, not a government file.)
In short: if Detective Hoover wishes to continue practising as a recognised investigator, he must tolerate my presence — and I, apparently, must survive his.

Our first meeting took place in a windowless conference room at the Bellwick Council Building. He wore tweed. I wore hope. Only one of us has since changed outfits.

The Council’s brief was simple:

“Ensure a balanced portrayal of Mr Hoover’s professional competence, civic value, and general temperament.”

Two paragraphs into the first draft, he called it “character defamation by punctuation.”

We’ve since agreed that I’ll write the book, and he’ll disapprove of it in real time.
He’s even been granted commentary rights on this website. (I wasn’t consulted.)

Progress is… measurable, if not harmonious.
I have pages; he has opinions.
Between us, that almost constitutes literature — or at least the beginnings of a British noir mystery with too much paperwork.

Still, there’s something remarkable about the case itself — two teenagers, a drowned truth, and a town that refuses to talk about either.
Even he seems quieter when it comes up.
Sometimes silence says more than sarcasm.
It’s a strange foundation for a psychological crime novel, but perhaps that’s what Bellwick demands: less heroism, more aftermath.

For now, I write, he grumbles, and the Council sends encouraging emails in bold.
It’s progress of a sort.

— J. Kushley