"Scent of the Missing"

Title: Scent of the Missing
Author: Susannah Charleson
Age Range: 12+
Reviewer: Heather
Note: This book will not be released until April 14th, 2010

Scent of the Missing is a well-written and captivating book about Search and Rescue, Susannah Charleson writes openly and in great detail. She uses many metaphors – and a lot of them made me laugh because they were so creative.

The book doesn’t have any real plot, but while reading it you don’t notice because it’s not that type of story. It’s a true account of the author’s journey of assisting and observing other search dog teams before she decides to train her own dog.

She gets Puzzle, a golden retriever, as a small puppy and writes about the good and bad, the easy and hard of training her to be a good search dog. It’s sometimes frustrating work for Susannah, but Puzzle seems born to search and does her job well.


Scent of the Missing doesn’t have much action, and I was surprised at how many of the searches she went on with Puzzle and other dogs were not actually successful. It’s mainly about her learning alongside her dog to help them both become part of the team.

This is a great book for anyone wanting to know more about the Search and Rescue program, or for those who want to actually train a Search and Rescue dog. It gave me a huge amount of insight on the subject.