[PW] Adult fiction stumper - creepy author book

[Conelly, Megan E]

I'm looking for a book that I checked out from the library where I
worked between 2001 and 2003.  It was newish at that time, probably
published between 1997 and 2003.

The story goes something like this:  A young reporter (or perhaps
author) and his female friend go to a small town in search of a
reclusive writer.  The townsfolk are reluctant to talk to them, but
eventually they contact the writer's daughter, who says her father has
gone missing.  It comes out that the man had been writing the life
stories of the people in the town, up to and including their deaths, and
that everything he'd written had come true.  The townsfolk really liked
this, and they'd become worried when he disappeared.  If people did bad
things (like one couple who beat their kids) or deviated from their
stories, the man would turn them into dogs (bull terriers, I believe).
The book ended with the young reporter writing the man back into the
town, and then the townsfolk trying to kill the young man.

That's all I remember.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Megan Conelly
Mendive Community Library
meconelly at washoecounty.us