The Dog Who Knew Too Much

   

I just finished the The Dog Who Knew Too Much.  It is another of the Chet and Bernie mysteries.  There is only one left to read and I have already requested it from the library.  Then I will have to wait for Spencer Quinn to write another one.  I hate that I can read a book in a day, but it takes authors a year to get a book out for me.  How is that fair?  Fortunately there are a lot of good authors out there. 

I like a good mystery and I rarely solve it before the detectives.  I don't try to figure it out, usually.  I just enjoy the ride.  I particularly enjoy the ride with Chet.  Because he is a dog, he has absolute loyalty to Bernie, who is the best detective in the world.  Chet gets a little worried about how Bernie handles the business side of the business, but being a dog, he is easily distracted by something else!

Because Chet ALMOST became a police dog, something that is alluded to in each book and apparently involves a cat racing through the final test, (and blood) he has talents useful to a private detective.  In this book he is trying to track a boy missing from a summer camp in the mountains. 

"..what matters was how much fun creeks with water in them turned out to be.  I even saw a fish that jumped right into the air!  I was after him in a flash, of course, almost got a paw on the little bugger, but he dove back in and sped away with a flick of his tail.

' For God's sake,' Bernie said from the side of the creek, his clothes kind of wet for some reason, 'you don't even like fish.'

True, but only on account of this bad incident with a fish bone -that's what they are called despite not looking at all like bones.  I climbed onto the bank, gave myself a good shake - 'Chet!' - and headed up-country, focused, alert, professional."

"  '..Moondog and his ilk are piss poor sources of information around here.'

Piss poor?  That was a new one.  I kind of liked it.  I myself was piss rich, no doubt about that.  I wandered out of the circle of light.  and lifted my leg against the tunnel wall.  Chet the Jet!"

 

I love the way Chet thinks and how it seems so much like how a dog would...or should at any rate.  So I highly recommend this series. 

And one of these days I will take the time to figure out how to snatch a picture from Amazon so you don't have to see the glare from the library wrap on the cover of a book!

Chet and Bernie Mysteries

   

I'm really enjoying the Chet and Bernie Mysteries.  Dogs and Private Investigators.  What's not to love?

I like the way Spencer Quinn tells the story from the dog's point of view.  The dog is looking for clues to help Bernie and then finds a Cheetos under a couch and gets distracted.  He listens to the conversation and then falls asleep and misses what's going on.  He finds a rotten piece of hot dog and eats it.  He starts to feel sick, barfs it up and is happy as a clam.  Funny and so real all at the same time.

The mysteries are not the cozies you might think,  based on the dog gimmick.  They are darker and more dangerous than the usual pet mysteries. 

I learned my lesson about reading a whole series, one after another.  When I used to find an author I loved I would sit down and request all the books from the first to the most recent and then read them as fast as I could.  I did this with Lee Child.  He has a series about a retired MP named Jack Reacher.  Well, Reacher, even his Mom called him that. I read them one after the other.  Even though the books were all well written, I got a little exasperated with Reacher.  Grow up, already.  Get an apartment and quit wandering like Kerouac seemed to do.  And maybe you should quit breaking people's faces when they upset you.  Even though that is a bit satisfying for all the readers.

So rather than reading them all at once, I am limiting my journey to the present with Chet and Bernie to one book each time I go to the library.  This way I will still love them and anticipate each new adventure with love, rather than exasperation.