MEANWHILE, WE'VE GOT:

Dog On It, A Chet and Bernie Mystery, by Spencer Quinn, Atria 2009, first of a six and growing series

Chet and Bernie are partners in the Little Detective Agency.  Bernie drives a banged up Porsche, is divorced and lives in the Valley next to the freeway.  Together the two tackle the toughest crooks in the neighborhood.  They’ve solved kidnappings, grand thefts, identity theft and old-fashioned murders, although somehow the Little Detective Agency books are always in the red.  Bernie, the head honcho, is not great in the collections area, and Chet, who has a great appreciation for what money can buy, can’t read the numbers.  So together they keep the locals in line, hoping for the big payoff.  The check is in the mail, right?

This book is the first in another series of positivityness books that can be addictive.  Oh, and did I mention that the narrator is Chet,  a black, or mostly black canine?  With all the habits and foibles of The Nation Within, what Bernie affectionately calls our dog world.  That’s right, although Chet has great appreciation for the moments when Bernie signals him to be quiet, or “take him down,” or stay still, there are times when the narrator notices a breeze flapping his tail uncontrollably, or when, faced with a bad dude, he suddenly hears loud barks coming from where – that’s right, must be his own throat, breaking down a tense moment.  Yet somehow Chet manages the mix of dog work and being a narrator quite well, at least better than Bernie, who tends to mumble and falter during odd moments.  “Don’t get me wrong, “Chet would advise, “Bernie’s the best and the two of us partners are unbeatable.  But take the time Bernie attempted a keynote speech at the Valley Chamber of Commerce.  He was invited to talk about his most successful cases, and believe me, The Little Detective Agency has plenty, but once he got behind that tall podium, all his speech pages fluttered off the stage and Bernie decided to wrap it up real quick.  Confusing.   You know in the human world things happen, and sometimes people get hurt.  Like Bernie’s leg, you know, the war wound…. Well, we’ll save that for another time.”

For positivityness, these quick reads are classics and we wait excitedly for author Spencer Quinn, actually Peter Abraham, to write the next one.  They are addictive, and we can only hope that Chet’s life in dog years is extended and on through several generations of tough crime-fighting. 

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