Bloodhound in Blue

Before JJ, few police departments in the West used bloodhounds, and none in Utah. But just when JJ was finally convincing naysayers, he and Officer Serio ran into something worse than resistance: the despair of failure amid high hope. JJ had been tracking Brian David Mitchell, the man who abducted Elizabeth Smart, when he was pulled off the track. Elizabeth later told investigators that on the day she was kidnapped she heard a dog baying in the woods behind her.

In almost nine years of service, JJ helped apprehend nearly 300 criminal suspects in the Salt Lake City area. Here is his remarkable story, fleas and all.

"Full of adventures and misadventures, achievements and frustrations, Bloodhound in Blue is maturely and carefully written, with wry and unexpected vignettes of humor. Thoroughly researched, purely factual, it is nonetheless moving on several interweaving levels, like the finely told tale it is. ... Russ [has a] finesse in wording. ... We have here a work that treats them [police officers] sympathetically and honestly. ... This story is refreshing, portraying the decent intensity of a good officer. ... You come away from this book with a sense of having been there, of having slobber on your clothes, and the memory of immense silky ears between your fingers."
—San Francisco Book Review