L.A.'s magic has let me see every level of the dream.

I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon 'Little Sister.' I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction.

The relationship between a military working dog and a military dog handler is about as close as a man and a dog can become. You see this loyalty, the devotion, unlike any other and the protectiveness.

I write characters and stories that move me, and I write from the heart.

My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn't know what to think about me. So I became a closet writer.

I began to encounter real-life stories of dogs protecting their wounded or dying or dead handler... or dogs refusing to leave the bodies of the people they were bonded to, sitting in cemeteries for days or sometimes weeks. You find these stories endlessly.

A dog could see your heart in your eyes, Budress told him, and dogs were drawn to our hearts.