Autumn has come to Bucks County, and Steve Levitan has a new job: develop a conference center for Eastern College at Friar Lake, a few miles from campus. But on his first visit to the property, his golden retriever Rochester makes a disturbing discovery, a human hand rising from the dirt at the lake’s shore. Whose hand is it? Why was the body buried there? The answers will take Steve, his photographer girlfriend Lili, and the ever-faithful Rochester to a drop-in center for recovering drug addicts on the Lower East Side, a decaying church in Philadelphia’s Germantown, and finally to a confrontation with a desperate killer.

Steve's new job may be in jeopardy unless he and his canine companion can dig up the clues regarding a body found on the site. Autumn has come to Bucks County, and Steve Levitan has a new job: develop a conference center for Eastern College at Friar Lake, a few miles from campus. But on his first visit to the property, his golden retriever Rochester makes a disturbing discovery, a human hand rising from the dirt at the lake's shore. Whose hand is it? Why was the body buried there? The answers will take Steve, his photographer girlfriend Lili, and the ever-faithful Rochester to a drop-in center for recovering drug addicts on the Lower East Side, a decaying church in Philadelphia's Germantown, and finally to a confrontation with a desperate killer.

It's almost time for graduation, and Eastern College is in trouble. A prominent alumna is dead, and a faulty computer program is jeopardizing student records and financial aid. It's up to Steve and Rochester to dig into the situation and retrieve the culprits!Rita Gaines wasn't a nice person—but she did love her dogs, and most of her clients respected her financial acumen and her talent in training dogs for agility trials. When she's found dead, there's a long line of potential suspects from Wall Street whiz kids to doting doggie daddies-- including one of Steve's former students. Felae is an art prodigy now studying with Steve's girlfriend, Lili, chair of Eastern's Fine Arts department, and Rita hated his controversial senior project. When she tried to have his scholarship cancelled, he threatened to kill her. But is he the villain behind her death?In between helping Steve's high school friend Rick track the killer, Rochester practices darting around weave poles and jumping over limbo poles while Steve helps shepherd the college toward the completion of another academic year. It's spring in Stewart's Crossing, and old friends – and their dogs—gather together to investigate and eventually, to celebrate.

When his neighbor is accused of murder, reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan and his golden retriever Rochester are asked to sniff out clues to prove her innocence. Who could have killed bookstore owner Darlene Nowak? One of the food trucks venders she angered when they parked in front of her store? Someone from the writer’s critique group she sponsored? Did a self-published author she refused to promote write her into a real murder mystery? Steve knows that cooks and creative folks are very sensitive about criticism—but could one of them be angry enough to kill? “The golden retriever mysteries are barking good!” - Sparkle Abbey, author of the Pampered Pet mystery series

Rochester goes to college-- but he's not digging up a degree! When his mentor, Joe Dagorian, director of admissions at prestigious Eastern College, is murdered during a fund-raising event, Steve Levitan feels obliged to investigate. He and his golden retriever, Rochester, go nose to the ground to dig up clues, including a bloody knife and some curious photographs. But will Steve’s curiosity and Rochester’s savvy save them when the killer comes calling? A cozy mystery for dog lovers! Second in Neil S. Plakcy's Golden Retriever Mysteries, The Kingdom of Dog is funny and charming-- and who can resist a gregarious golden character like Rochester?

THE START OF A BEAUTIFUL PARTNERSHIP— A DETECTIVE DUO WITH HEART AND FUR Steve’s ripe for a new relationship—divorced, over forty, and still dusting himself off from a lamentable sojourn in prison, an unusual experience for a professor, to say the least. (He really must do something about his hacking habit!) Rochester’s a handsome, homeless, loveable golden retriever whom Steve had always found too big, too enthusiastic, and too shaggy. But tragedy struck their neighborhood when someone murdered Caroline, Steve’s nice next-door neighbor, while she walked her best friend, Rochester. Steve’s the unlucky guy who finds her body and he just knows, despite their differences, that he has to take in the broken-hearted pooch. Once they’re both properly rehomed, these two form a detective partnership that’ll make you sit up and beg for more. Eat your hearts out, Spade & Archer—pretty soon they’ve got a warm and fuzzy thing going. Big furry forthrightness—not to mention heart—meets tech-savvy craftiness as they work their case. Rochester has no idea he has the potential to be the greatest doggy detective since Rex the Wonder Dog was a pup. But he’s got a job to do and he has to find a way to train Steve in the fine art of investigation. Unbeknownst to Steve, his life just changed radically—because a big furry mentor has just trotted into it. Both want justice for Caroline, and Rochester’s way of expressing it is simply to sniff out one clue after another in the hope his two-legged colleague can piece them together. Steve’s way—when all’s said and done— is still to bend the law a little, with the help of Caroline’s contraband laptop. And also to follow Rochester’s trail of treats.

When his college friend Doug moves to Stewart’s Crossing after an ugly divorce, reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan sees a way to pay forward the help he received under similar circumstances. But when Doug dies under mysterious circumstances, Steve and his crime-solving golden retriever Rochester have a new goal: Find the truth behind Doug’s death, even if Steve has to risk the freedom he has fought so hard for to do it. Contains Ponzi schemers, a Quaker funeral and cute jump drives shaped like llamas.