Flash by Donna Ball

 
I just finished a book by Donna Ball.  I have never read her before.  She writes in many genres and with a few different names.  But I haven't read any of those, either.  I will now.

Flash is the first book in a new series, the Dogleg Mysteries.  Dogleg is an island off the coast of Florida. Two years previously there was a murder and one of the responding police officers was shot in the head, but survived.

Most of the book takes place after that event with a few flash backs as the police office who was shot starts to recover her memory in fits and starts.  The upcoming court case for the shooter seems to trigger these flashbacks.

When the police officers responded to the ringing alarm, they discovered two bodies, a man with bloody hands holding a gun and a small and distraught Border Collie puppy.    As his owners are either dead or in jail for murder, the police officer who was shot adopts him and he becomes a de facto police dog.  The puppy has what looks like a streak of lightning on his head and is named Flash.

In the Spencer Quinn dog mysteries, Chet, the dog, is an active partner in the crime fighting duo.  The books are told from his view point.  In this book Flash is very useful in scenting things and bringing them to the attention of Aggie Malone, who, since the shooting, has become the Police Chief of Dogleg Island. 

But the story is not Flash's to tell.  In fact it is not until the end of the book that he realizes that there is a reason to apprehend the real shooter in the story.  He knows, but that is in the past and dogs live in the here and now.

I like a murder mystery without too much blood, a bit of a romance and add in a smart and helpful dog and this book was a winner. I will look for future books in the series.  I will also check out some of her other series.

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.

Dueling Books

I am currently reading two books.  I don't usually do that because how hard is it to finish one and then read the other?  I guess it makes sense if you are doing research and looking at a bit of information here and there.  But for a novel just read it and go on.

I am a wee bit ashamed to acknowledge that I read romance books.  I actually prefer books with intrigue and a bit of romance over strictly romance.  I used to read only mysteries and then I migrated over to romance.  Now I go back and forth with a few biographies and other non-fiction thrown in.  If I had to analyze it I would say that I like the completed circle of a mystery.  Real life is much more messy and more likely to end badly.  I can get that in the news.  So a good mystery or romance finds the bad guy caught or the good guy with the girl and that is satisfying, somehow.

                                   

Don't ask me why I am reading Darkly Dreaming Dexter.  He is not as good guy.  He is a sociopath who enjoys killing people.  And yet he is the protagonist that you find yourself, in some weird way, hoping will prevail.  I don't even enjoy "caper" books or movies because I DON"T want them to get away with it.

We recently went on a long car trip with our two daughters.  Tara brought along two seasons of Dexter from Showtime to use in the DVD player behind my head.   It was rather strange to drive along listening to people being murdered or the planning of a murder.  And strangely compelling.  I wouldn't say that I am hooked and I don't have Showtime, but I did check out the book from the library to see how it differed from the series.

If you are unfamiliar with the book or the series, it is basically about a pleasant young man who has a need to kill people.  He was adopted as a small child by a policeman father who had rescued him from some unknown childhood trauma.  His father recognized early on that Dexter had some emotional issues after finding pet graveyards of the neighborhood animals that annoyed him.  He went about giving Dexter rules for who he could kill and how to get away with it.  I imagine that there are some cops that wish they could go after criminals that they know are guilty, but can't legally prove it. Dexter grows up to be a blood splatter expert for a police department which hones his skills in escaping detection.

This doesn't sound like a nice guy, but, like I said, he is strangely compelling.  Granted, the Showtime version has a slightly more likable Dexter than the book. 

                                   

I have Dog On It by Spencer Quinn loaded on my Nook.  I bought it some time ago, but have put off reading it.  I like to keep purchased books for an emergency, like a trip where I run out of library books.  I also use it to read at night when I can't sleep.  My Nook has a light so that I don't have to wake Lee to read.  So I have been reading Dexter during the day and Dog On It at night.  I need a break from the darkness that is Dexter and I am really enjoying the Quinn book.

Dog On It is the first in a series about a private detective, Bernie and his dog, Chet.  The story is told from the dogs' perspective.  Chet was almost a police dog, until a CAT ruined his final exam.  He hates cats.  He will start to narrate some part of the ongoing investigation and then get sidetracked by a Cheeto under a chair.  Dust and dirt don't interfere with his enjoyment of a wee snack.  Once he discovered a long lost portion of a burned hot dog.  After consuming it he felt kind of funny so he deposited it on the patio.  He felt MUCH better after that. 

Chet sometimes barks like Lassie to alert Bernie and then he barks like every dog to enjoy the bark.  I am enjoying Chet and will have to order the rest of the series.  I'm not so sure I will read more of Dexter.  It is a little too dark for me.