Chet The Dog

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Beginnings

Without a doubt the most original mystery series currently available. – Stephen King

On Sundays we do beginnings, taking a look at the first few lines of all the Peter Abrahams books including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker – mostly so we can use that word! Moniker!

Today – The Sound and the Furry:

“One thing’s for sure,” the lawyer said, handing Bernie our check, “you earned every cent.”

Bernie tucked the check in – oh, no – the chest pocket of his Hawaiian shirt, just about his nicest Hawaiian shirt, with the hula dancers and the trombones, but that wasn’t the point. The point was we’d had chest pocket problems in the past, more than once. And possibly more than twice, but I wouldn’t know, since I don’t count past two. What I do know is that checks have a way of falling out of chest pockets.

“What’s he barking about?” the lawyer said.

Bernie glanced at me. “Just wants to get rolling,” he said. That wasn’t it at all: what I wanted was for Bernie to put that check in his front pants pocket where it would be safe. But then I realized that I did kind of want to get rolling. Wow! That was Bernie, knowing my own mind better than I did. And I knew his exactly the same way!

Preorder (More)

Getting some questions re the Of Mutts and Men preorder promotion. All who preorder a digital or hardcover copy of Of Mutts and Men will receive for free on pub date the brand new short story called The Iggy Papers. Simply upload the receipt to the link below. (The questions on the form re month and year of birth are required since those under 18 are ineligible.) All we’ll tell you about The Iggy Papers is that Iggy enters the Galaxatron. As for Of Mutts and Men, it features both defamiliarization and anacoluthon – but you won’t even notice!

For Hobbit – no, never tried pickle ball, but I’m under pressure to.

https://read.macmillan.com/promo/muttsandmenpreordercampaign/?fbclid=IwAR3i2SjWkxcdu8ERGg6tKY3xyYJNq0aqLjXo9gkU9IrHAHfGFnxlxBhByes

Tennis!

Played tennis this morning! First time back on the court since all this. Felt normal! I’ve written quite a bit about tennis – for example, in The Tutor and A Perfect Crime – and in Chet and Bernie, too. Here’s the tennis lesson from Thereby Hangs A Tail:

The tall blond guy took a ball from the bucket and hit it to Ganz. Ganz wore white shorts, had skinny legs like sticks. He swung his racquet and hit the ball back. The tall guy let it go by, took out another ball. “Brush up, Shermie, brush up. Spin on the ball, always spin on the ball.” He hit the ball over the net. Ganz swung, this time missing the ball completely. “Brush up but through, up but through, up but through,” said the tall guy, sending over another ball. Brush? I knew brushes, saw none around. Maybe tennis was tougher than it looked, but I didn’t worry about that because a ball came bouncing over in our direction – we were now beside the court – and I snatched it out of the air, and who wouldn’t have, the ball being right there practically saying, “Catch me.” And then – this part was a bit harder to understand – I was on the court, racing toward the net. Up and over: not much of a challenge, tennis nets turning out not to be very high, but still it felt so great, being airborne and all, that I kind of twisted around still up there, if you see what I mean, and landed facing back at the net, and the next thing I knew I was jumping over it again, from the other direction, and, yes! doing the spin move once more, and when I landed this time, somehow with two balls in my mouth now – how had that happened? – I –

“Chet!”

A Review With Lots of Illustrations!

http://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com/2020/05/review-of-of-mutts-and-men-chet-and.html