Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Spencer Quinn’

Christian Science Monitor Review

“Murder, he barked

The most winning detective duo since Shaggy met Scooby returns in Spencer Quinn’s new mystery, “Thereby Hangs a Tail.” Finances ever shaky, Chet and his human, Bernie, take a job guarding a pampered show dog. What seems like a rich woman’s paranoia turns serious when Princess and her owner are kidnapped. Quinn mixes suspense and humor as Chet tries to puzzle out humans’ odd ways. (Bear claws? Why would anyone eat those? Have humans not seen the Discovery Channel? And don’t get him started on red herrings or crocodile tears.) But if idioms elude Chet, the same cannot be said for bad guys.”

Is This A Democracy?

Spence and Admin are kind of scrapping today. I don’t mean throwing down. You wouldn’t want to see that – they’re not big guys like me and Bernie, and probably wouldn’t do that well up against, say, Jocko Cochrane. Oops, maybe shouldn’t be mentioning old Jocko. Which maybe brings us to this scrapping between Spence and Admin. It’s all about some biopsy, whatever that is. Spence says lots of readers are worried about the biopsy so why not post some scene from book 3 that clears everything up. Admin says, “Is this suspense or not? In suspense there’s supposed to be suspense, which means no peeking.”

Bernie gets tired of the scrapping and says, “Why not ask the readers? See what they want – post or no post.”

All right, I’m asking.

Pawnbroker, Ukulele, Us (From Thereby Hangs A Tail)

“What a beautiful instrument,” said Mr. Singh. He turned it over in his hands. “Genuine Hawaiian koa, highly flamed, Sitka spruce top braces, bone nut. Do you play?”

“A bit.”

A bit? Bernie was a master!

“Would a brief selection be possible? Anything at all.”

Of course it was possible. How about “Waltz Across Texas?” “Parachute Woman?” “Ghost Riders in the Sky?” And there was always “Surfin’ U.S.A,” guaranteed to get them up and dancing. Suddenly I was in the mood to see Mr. Singh dance. I don’t exactly dance, myself, but when dancing starts up I’m no wallflower, either, kind of confusing, the wallflower part, because I’ve often seen flowers – even flowers growing by a wall – dancing in the breeze.

We learned so much about balls yesterday!  Have to go back to it in the future, whenever that is.